Michelle Coventry
Michelle is our Head of Talent. She supports the fund’s portfolio founders with hiring unstoppable talent from all over the world and helping them create high-performance, connected workplaces.
From a very young age, I was disciplined and trained hard after school every day in my chosen sport. As a daughter of an entrepreneur, time with my dad was precious; during each daily car ride pick-up, he would share his ‘challenge of the day’ and ask me, “What would you do?“. Solving problems as his company grew became ingrained in my DNA and has set me up well for what I do today.
Michelle together with the Kive team
Looking back, I probably should have had a more thoughtful career plan. Having studied engineering, the city wasn’t for me, but it did expose me to tech founders bringing their companies to market. Curious, I fell into headhunting for European Tech Funds before moving across to placing operators into their leadership teams. After decades as a service provider, one day, an influential VC partner suggested I join one of their portfolio companies to build out the team from scratch as Talent & People Ops. I jumped at the opportunity, albeit back then needing to learn more about living side-by-side with your hiring choices as VP People Operations and doing whatever it took to deliver on creating a workplace for people to land and do their best work.
Gemma and Michelle in Iceland
Over two decades, I’ve helped scale foundational teams that achieved great things; from marketplaces, SaaS to autonomous driving systems (Depop, Paddle, Wise, Dexory, Five.ai, to name a few). I’m forever grateful for their trust to make the switch into Operator, and whilst it was an initially back-breaking learning curve, without those experiences, I wouldn’t be able today to guide others, share learnings, and help others avoid previous mistakes made!
Michelle together with the Laka team
One of my biggest joys is seeing companies form, founders progress into world-class leaders and outstanding managers, and spending every day, every interaction, leaving entrepreneurs in better shape than I found them.
Michelle on Builder Stage at Slush 2023
Michelle and Chris Murphy