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Sep 06

InSITE Fellow Victoria Cheng awarded prestigious ‘Kauffman Fellowship’

Victoria Cheng, an InSITE Fellow and MBA student at Columbia Business School, has recently been selected to be part of the ‘Kauffman Fellows Program’ as a Kauffman Finalist, in a two-year program granted by the Center for Venture Education that aims to educate, develop and network emerging leaders in the venture capital industry and to cultivate new high-technology, high-growth and high-impact companies.  Each year, 30 people are chosen worldwide to be part of this fellowship and selection signals membership among an elite cadre of the world’s most promising venture investors.

Victoria has been a stellar fellow at InSITE (she has served as VP of Operations and AVP of Sourcing) and is passionate about education around entrepreneurship and the start-up ecosystem in New York.  She has worked with early stage companies from Incubation (SeedStart Incubator) to Seed (NYC Seed) to Early Stage (Foundation Capital) to Growth Equity (Investor Growth Capital).

In addition to being a VP at InSITE, Victoria also runs the Venture Capital initiatives for the Private Equity and Venture Capital Organization at Columbia Business School, where she will graduate in May 2012.  As she says, “I love investing in and working with entrepreneurs to create products that solve existing problems or change the way things are done today for the better.  InSITE played a large role in sparking my passion for working with early stage companies.”

The Kauffman Fellows receive professional mentorship, access to a network of Kauffman Fellows around the world, and an extensive curriculum to develop the skills and knowledge necessary to succeed in the venture capital industry. The educational curriculum includes classroom time, conferences, an international symposium and a customized leadership program. To date, Kauffman Fellows have made $6 billion in venture capital investments, sparking growth in hundreds of new enterprises, $15 billion in annually recurring revenues, and the creation of 50,000 jobs. Past Kauffman Fellows have gone on to become Partners and Founders at some of the world’s most well known venture capital firms such as NEA, USVP, Venrock, Kleiner Perkins, and DFJ.

In Victoria’s words “I think both InSITE and Kauffman are outstanding programs that are striving to expand the entrepreneurial community by educating and bringing together really talented individuals who are passionate about innovation.  It is an honor to have been selected.  I believe the Kauffman program would further guide me to becoming an investor and mentor to the companies that I work with.”
Kauffman Fellowship website: http://www.kauffmanfellows.org/

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