Visionary of the Year — Charlotte Newman

Fred Schonenberg
Hello, everyone, and welcome to the VentureFuel Visionaries podcast. I'm your host, Fred Schonenberg. I am so excited today because we have Charlotte Newman. And Charlotte is a trailblazer in the innovation ecosystem. She was recently recognized as VentureFuel's Visionary of the Year, which for those of you that don't know, is an honor voted on by peers to celebrate the change agents and those who are embracing new opportunities that drive outsized results.

So Charlotte is known for her work across the innovation ecosystem. She's a former founder, former global head of underrepresented founder and investor startup business development and Amazon Web Services. And she has championed diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives that democratize entrepreneurship and amplify historically marginalized voices worldwide.

Her leadership and advocacy have reshaped the innovation landscape, emphasizing the importance of collaboration, accountability and access. So now she is embarking on a new chapter. Charlotte continues to inspire as a visionary committed to empowering entrepreneurs and driving the transformative change across global ecosystems. So we're so excited to have her today. Charlotte, welcome to the show.

Charlotte Newman
Thank you. I'm excited to chat with you today. Thank you for having me. And also, I'm honored to be recognized as Visionary of the Year. It's humbling that peers nominated me and also voted for me to receive. 

Fred Schonenberg
Yeah, it's very well deserving. And yeah, it's funny. It's something that we kind of came up with. I mean, a while back, probably eight years ago at this point. And it's really cool to see the passion with which your peers voted for you and got behind the work that you're doing, which is really cool. And I'm excited to kind of dive into that a little bit. 

But your career spans an impressive range of leadership across different sectors, including work in Congress, an economic and policy advisor, co-founding a women's sports news platform, and then, of course, leading impactful initiatives over at Amazon that we talked about. Can you talk a little bit about your background and maybe how some of these different experiences have shaped your approach to leadership?

Charlotte Newman
Yeah, it's always interesting to have anyone or even for myself to kind of fit the arc of what I've done into a neat narrative. For me, it's always been about an interest in where I can challenge myself, but also I've fundamentally been interested in how to expand access and opportunity. In some contexts, like working in Congress and as an economic advisor for Senator Cory Booker, a lot of that was about access to capital and access to opportunity broadly. 

But I can draw that same thread through the work that I did as a startup founder. I grew up playing sports and co-founded a sports media startup because I recognized, back in 2010, that there just wasn't access to stories about female athletes, not at the same volume, right, that you saw for your favorite other athletes, favorite male athletes. And at the time, ESPNW didn't exist when I first started working on Teen Phenom. So we've come a long way, I think, since 2009, 2010.

And now we're just at an incredible point in terms of the amount of stories that you're seeing about athletes from like Kaitlin Clark to Angel Reese. But throughout everything that I've done, both in on Capitol Hill as an entrepreneur, and most recently in Amazon, it's been about how to get more people at the table, how to expand the economic pie and how to ensure that for me, regardless of where you live or how you identify, I think you should always have access to like, launch and scale the best ideas that you have. That's what the work was about at Amazon. And that's something I fundamentally believe personally as well.

Fred Schonenberg
Yeah, it's really interesting on the women's sports arc. We were talking a little bit before we hit record. My sister played soccer in college. She then went on to work at Madison Square Garden, the Major League Soccer. And then most recently at the New York, New Jersey, Gotham, women's soccer team in this area. And we've been talking, she and I about women's sports as that arc sort of happened. And it feels like all of a sudden, right? Like, it's like, women's sports are everywhere. But your startup, ESPNW, all those things, were maybe a little before their time. 

I'm curious how you think that thread ties into innovation. And where my head went was when we last caught up was at the Rogue Women event that we did in New York. You shared your insights on the innovation ecosystem. And I'm curious if you think that that same groundswell is starting to happen with access to capital, democratization of the sort of startup mindset and things like that. Do you think it's going to kind of follow a similar trajectory?

Charlotte Newman
Yeah, it's a great question. I feel that it does seem like all of a sudden, now, everywhere you turn, there's more discussion. There's certainly more visibility for women athletes across all sports, but we're seeing it especially for the WNBA and basketball. And that's always, I think, how things tend to work. Like there's this myth of, for example, like the overnight entrepreneur. And often, the most successful entrepreneurs actually build later in life. Sometimes it takes a much longer arc than what we think about. 

So I do think that there's a need for, at times, for startups like mine to start to do their bit, maybe not necessarily see the success that we think of in terms of a successful venture. But I think all of these things make a mark. And if you think about what it takes to get to a tipping point, which is essentially a part of what we're talking about, like, how do you get to a tipping point in a sector or tipping point with an idea that often requires lots of people taking like small, kind of small bites out of the apple or small hits, however you want to think about it. I do think that I'm not sure who knows if we're sort of at that tipping point.

I think many of us thought we were kind of coming out of 2020. Then there was clearly a pullback in terms of capital that was available to GPs, LPs that pulled back. And so that meant that funds weren't able to necessarily raise a second fund. That meant less capital available in some cases to diverse founders. And so I think, though, that that pullback has been, I hope, a blip. I think ultimately I like to think that if we're looking at, especially if we're thinking about sort of like a global ecosystem in terms of people building, if you look at where just we see population trends, if you look at what you can observe in terms of some of the larger problems that we face as just a society, many of those exist in the global south, for example.

I have to think that we're increasingly going to want just the smartest, best minds taking their best approach at solving some of these issues, whether you're talking about sustainability. Like I've spent time with founders who are working on agribusinesses in Kenya and other parts of sub-Saharan Africa. And I think that given their proximity to some of the issues that they're trying to solve, they're best suited for it. So I like to think that we will get to a tipping point. 

How far are we from that? It's hard to observe. I think as someone in the ecosystem, I think that sometimes when you have these pullbacks, it gives people, it kind of reaffirms the things that you already sort of know. And then I'd like to hope on the other side of what many expect to be a downward cycle for the next year plus, we'll see a resurgence hopefully in founders receiving capital. I'm speaking about diverse founders because that was, I think, the back of the question. But I tend to be an optimist as well.

Fred Schonenberg
Yeah, no, and I think that optimism is so important today more than ever. And one of the things that's really interesting when I look at it is like that proximity that you spoke to of the problem or the challenge, right? Or the opportunity, whatever, whichever of those three you want to look at. And those are the founders that break through, that deliver the best results. 

The ones that have lived the challenge or have seen the opportunity because they're in the muck, right? They've got their feet in the ground, maybe their head in the clouds too, which is always important. But I think as somebody that sees a lot of different startups and a lot of different industries, I think those are the founders that it's in them, right? Whatever this thing is they're doing. And so that's who you want to bet on. I think over time that just naturally is going to be who comes up with the solutions. So I hope that that positivity remains and that optimism remains because that's where sort of the best ideas come from.

Charlotte Newman
Yeah, absolutely. I've spent the last several years in a role where my day-to-day, a lot of that is spent coaching founders working directly with the portfolio companies of some of the venture capital partners that we had at AWS startups, and then also just building relationships with founders through other types of partners, like ecosystem builders, accelerators. And one of the questions that I know that I ask founders, and I think many of the people that I really respect across the ecosystem is often are you the best person to execute around this idea? 

I think that it's possible to be inspired and it's certainly possible to kind of come up with an idea that you may be not in that space, but oftentimes where we do see founders being most successful is where they have observed a problem, either through lived experience or through their professional experience, and then they're able to come up with a solution that really tackles that problem in a novel way. And also having been a founder, I know that to get through the sort of valleys that you're going to see to be able to, like, just persist through periods that can be really quite difficult, you need to have a connection with not just the solution but also the problem itself.

I think that comes from lived experience and not just like an academic notion of something that you kind of come up with just because it seems like a cool idea to build. There's certainly lots of companies that get a lot of attention that do follow a different model, but I think ultimately the ones that are most successful kind of follow the pattern that we're talking about.

Fred Schonenberg
Yeah, I love that. And how are you, what other advice, I mean, one of the things you've done throughout your career is advise founders, and I think it feels at the moment like there are so many challenges facing founders, facing everybody, and I'm curious what advice, I know this is a little bit general, but do you have for founders out there that are thinking through how to navigate sort of some of today's challenges?

Charlotte Newman
Yeah, I think one of the things that I think a lot about is the advisors that founders assemble, and what I could see sometimes founders doing, especially when they're very early, is not taking the time to check in with advisors or their board as often as they should. It's sort of like formal meetings. I think that a lot of times building can be isolating in some ways, and then founders can take steps that further create more of an isolated sort of existence where they're just sort of tinkering and building. And there is almost this like trope of an idea of someone building in their garage. 

But in reality, I think that the best way to execute is actually in community, and that's in community with peers. So I think that it's also possible to be mentored and to get great advice by peers of yours who are also going through the same thing. And I think you should have an excellent group of advisors who either are formally a part of an advisory group or formally a part of your board.

I mean, that's table stakes, but I think it's also important to ensure that you have people with real deep experience who are willing to, that you can pick up the phone and call, because I think that those conversations are often the ones that help you tackle those really tough problems. When I talk to founders that have been really successful, like one of the founders, the founders of Squire, for example, I've spent some time with them, and when they talk about some of the tougher challenges, they're really around people, and I think oftentimes, whether it's like how to get the right people in the door and hire them full time, or how to get the right advice, a lot of this is solved actually in consultation with people who have been there before, and who have some experience around the sector that it is that you're building in, or who have experience with the ups and downs of just what startup life is like.

So I think that that's one of the biggest pieces of advice that I can give, and it really applies to anyone, like there are people who might listen to this conversation, and they're not running a startup, but maybe they're doing something entrepreneurial, maybe they're working at a large corporate, and I think that there is just no substitute for, I think, what you can do in partnership with a group of committed, like-minded people, and I often Senator Booker would use this quote a lot, it's like, go fast alone, but go farther together, or some, I'm paraphrasing a bit, but I think that that is really, it really captures what I, what I was just sharing, and the importance of building alongside others.

Fred Schonenberg
Yeah, it's so crazy, right, and I'm a multi-time founder too, and I've stepped in a lot of the potholes that you're talking about, where I know now that if I talk, if I had not been in my early 20s, trying to figure it all out myself, I could have instead of that taking three months and giving me the gray hair I have, I could have had one conversation and been like, oh, yeah, this isn't actually core to what's special about my business, this is a general problem, and there's so many people that have walked this road before, and they could help me figure out how to leapfrog it.

Charlotte Newman
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I think a lot of times that kind of humility of knowing that you should seek advice and when to seek advice comes with experience. It comes after you've kind of hit your head or stumbled a bit, and we spoke earlier about the leadership lessons that I gained from different experiences, and I think one of the things that I took most from my experience working with Senator Booker and other members of Congress was the humility required and also sacrifice sometimes of leaders. And that's something that I still draw on a lot. That it's okay to not have all the answers, that sometimes being able to ask great questions is really what you need to do as a leader.

Fred Schonenberg
You know, it's really interesting. I love this, and I think for most listeners, they would say, yeah, you should have the humility to know you don't have the answers. I think, like, a 2.0 or maybe a plus one on that, too, is, like, sometimes you might actually have the answer, but you have to have the humility not to give it. 

If that makes sense, right, where, like, you might know, but it's actually important that the people around you are the ones that come up with that answer to drive it forward. And I think that's very hard, especially for a lot of founders that are, like, it's my company, like, do it this way, and it's like, well, you might not be right, and also, like, maybe it doesn't need to be exactly the way you want it done in this case all the time.

Charlotte Newman
Yeah, no, that's a huge one when it comes to leading teams, right, that a lot of times you might know the best, but at least you've done it quicker. And sometimes it can be tempting to kind of weigh in or step into a problem that someone on your team is trying to solve. But it really is important to allow those challenges to play out. I think you build a stronger culture that way. 

And you also, it's a form of trust, right, it's like you have to be able to trust the people that you have put in places to, whether it's your C-suite or your senior leadership layer or it's, or junior employees, you have to have, allow them some autonomy and have the trust that they'll be able to work through the problem and you don't necessarily have to step into every fire that comes up. Although that can be really tempting, especially for founders, because it's like I built this, this is mine, it's like, how do you kind of have a little bit more arm's length with problems, that's something that comes over time.

Fred Schonenberg
Yeah, it's hard, right, you feel like, oh, I can solve this, and it feels good to solve things, and like, you recognize that all of a sudden you're solving things that aren't mission critical. And there's only so much bandwidth in the day. I feel like we could talk for hours about advice for founders, and maybe we'll do that on a second call. 

What I'm curious about, and I'll kind of group this under the idea of like, what's next, let you take this wherever you would like to go. I would love to know from your perspective, either what's next on your journey, what's next in terms of technologies or startups or even global areas of innovation that you're excited about. Just what is getting you excited about the innovation ecosystem right now?

Charlotte Newman
Yeah, so there are two things that I'd say I'm very excited about. The first is, I've always been someone with a foot in, let's say, technology, or a foot in on spaces that are more innovative in like, how people think of it in a traditional sense. And then I've had a foot in worlds that are more creative. So for me, that's been the fine art world. I've been thinking a lot about the intersection of creative spaces and technology.

And I think that there's been a real rush and a lot of interest around NFTs, for example, and I think a lot of focus on how NFTs would totally transform art. But I think that there's a real, much more comprehensive, holistic and interesting way to think about it that just doesn't focus on NFTs replacing how we think about physical art. That if you look at kind of the art world, a lot of it is still a space where there's a lot that happens that is more… almost like an old world way of doing things.

There are all these spaces for possible disruption, improvement, efficiency, and it's been really interesting to watch as some founders have taken that on. And so that's something I'm personally sort of very interested in, that sort of intersection. There's a startup, Arturnal, for example, that's tried to bring a lot of efficiencies to museum institutions and galleries and help them with having management systems that we've seen in the private sector for some time, but just didn't sort of exist in those spaces.

So I'm curious to see more founders building that space and interested in what that looks like. So that's one space that I'm really fascinated by, just because if you think about it, it's been a space that's kind of been, where you've seen some tinkering, but you haven't seen as many buildings. I'm excited to see what more comes beyond artsy, which you might be familiar with, which is a platform that allows collectors to browse artists and to kind of store images of the artworks that they collected. It would be interesting just to see more innovation across the different spaces that exist within the art world, whether you're talking to the institutional side, gallery side, or collector side. So that's one space. 

And then the other thing that I think is really personally interesting is the innovations that are being… the innovation that's happening in emerging markets. Personally, towards the end of my time in the role that I was in at AWS, I spent some time in India and some time in some of the major startup ecosystems across Sub-Saharan Africa. So I was in Cape Town and in Nairobi and in Lagos, and it was really interesting to work directly with founders who were having to really build, but also solve for sometimes just foundational challenges that founders in other places don't have to think about. 

So let's say that there is going to be a blackout or you're not going to have consistent access to energy. Like, how do you navigate around that? And so I think that that builds a really resilient group of founders who have to not only think about how to solve for the direct problem they're solving for, they're also solving for these contextual challenges that are out of their control in some instances. And so I've been just interested to learn a lot more about those different ecosystems. 

And I expect to, in the next few months, to be in Nairobi for an extended bit of time. I still have kept in touch with some of the founders and funds that I met there. One that I'm really excited about is Melanin Capital. They lend to SMEs in East Africa who are helping to, who are building businesses that focus on sustainability. So I'm just really fascinated by the founders who are working in the context that I was describing. Then also helping to solve some of those big challenges that face all of us, like sustainability, but doing so in a way that makes sense of the markets where they are. And hopefully there are lessons to be learned in other markets as well.

Fred Schonenberg
Yeah, I love the range of those two examples. It speaks to how you think about the world, which is really beautiful. And Charlotte, thank you for all that you've done to spark change and continue to do. Congratulations again on being Visionary of the Year. We're so happy to be able to honor you and look forward to keeping in touch and seeing what's next on your end. So thank you.

Charlotte Newman
Absolutely. Thank you. It was great to be in conversation with you. Absolutely thrilled to be honored in this way and look forward to, like you said, maybe part two. So let's definitely continue the conversation.

Fred Schonenberg
I love it.