Laura Roden - Alliance Director
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Biography
Laura Roden is the founder and Managing Director of VC Privé, a specialized placement agency which helps form and raise money for new venture capital funds, and is an information conduit for accredited investors wishing to access VC opportunities. She also represents EB Exchange Funds, the leader in private company equity pooling vehicles that help company founders diversify their net worth before they reach a liquidity event.
Laura was previously Managing Director of The Angels’ Forum (TAF), the country’s leading private investor venture capital group, which has funded more than 100 early stage companies over its ten years of operation. During her tenure at TAF, she completed 40 financings, increased investor membership by 70%, and was a prominent speaker at angel capital and entrepreneur educational events, including the annual meeting of the Angel Capital Association, the Inc 500 Awards and the Women in Angel Investing conference of the Women’s Technology Cluster.
For four years before joining The Angels’ Forum, Laura was the CEO of the Silicon Valley Association of Startup Entrepreneurs (SVASE), the largest and fastest growing nonprofit association in Northern California dedicated exclusively to helping technology entrepreneurs build successful businesses. Under her leadership, SVASE experienced extraordinary growth in membership, sponsorship, program offerings, and prominence in the community.
Laura came to SVASE following a decade of entrepreneurship, including founding executive roles (principal, COO or CFO) in three successive technology startups. The last of these ventures, PowerTV, was sold to Scientific Atlanta in 2001 (now part of Cisco). Before becoming an entrepreneur Laura had spent seven years at Chronicle Publishing Company, holding the positions of CFO of the broadcasting division and General Manager of the cellular telephone group. She came to Chronicle from Touche Ross & Co (now Deloitte & Touche) where she was a senior management consultant. Ms Roden began her career first in marketing research at Hill Holliday Advertising in Boston, and then as a product manager for HP Hood & Co, a leader in the New England dairy products industry. She received both her undergraduate and MBA degrees from Harvard University.
Active in the nonprofit community for many years, Ms Roden was an original Board member of the Forum for Women Entrepreneurs (FWE) as well as a Board member and President of Pets In Need, Inc. She was nominated as one of the “most influential women in Silicon Valley” by the San Jose Business Journal. Professionally, Ms Roden has been quoted or published in Newsweek, Electronic Media, Release 2.0, the San Francisco Chronicle, Silicon Valley Biz Ink, and other leading publications. She is also a lecturer in Corporate Finance at San Jose State University.