Joanne Chen ’03

Finance Committee

Joanne’s passion for technology developed early, when her mathematician dad and computer scientist mom taught her how to program. By the time she was nine years old, she had turned her skills into a business and made her first webpage for a client.

Joanne began her career as an engineer at Cisco Systems and later co-founded a mobile gaming company. She also spent many years working on Wall Street at Jefferies & Company, helping tech companies go through the IPO and M&A processes, and at Probitas Partners, advising venture firms on their own fundraising process. She was an angel investor for two years at Hyde Park Angels prior to joining Foundation in 2014.

Joanne was on the boards of TubiTV (acquired by Fox for $500m), Mya (acquired by Stepstone), EraDB (acquired by ServiceNow) and is currently on the board of and/or invested in Jasper, Tonkean, SafelyYou, CaptivateIQ, Oasis Labs, Watchful, Arcade, and many others.

Joanne invests in early stage AI-first B2B applications (“self driving companies”) and data platforms that are the building blocks of the automated enterprise. She has shared her learnings as a featured speaker at conferences including CES, SXSW, WebSummit, and has spoken about the impact of AI on society in her TED talk “Confessions of an AI Investor.”

Joanne has a B.S. in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from University of California at Berkeley and an MBA from the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business.

Joanne is a food fanatic, animal lover, and travel addict. She grew up in Canada and considers North Carolina her second home (after the Bay Area). She loves to play video games, in particular Soul Calibur, and is entertaining challenges from brave souls.