May Samali of Urban Innovation Fund talks about her path into her dream job in venture capital which started out in law.

07/24/18 • 41 min

Who is May Samali?

May Samali is an investor at the Urban Innovation Fund, a San Francisco-based venture capital firm. May has had extensive experiences advising both early-stage startups and large companies across the U.S. and Australia. Prior to her current role, she was a Director at Tumml, an urban ventures accelerator in San Francisco. She also served as a Strategy Consultant at a boutique venture firm and as an attorney at Herbert Smith Freehills in Sydney.

May earned her MPP from the Harvard Kennedy School and her economics and law degrees from the University of Sydney. She is also an Australian John Monash Scholar, a Gleitsman Leadership Fellow at the Harvard Center for Public Leadership, and an Australian American Young Leadership Dialogue delegate.

Show Highlights

Terri shares how she met May on the Connected Homes pitch panel at Launch Festival in 2017 which was an all-women panel.
May shares her journey from Australia to the Silicon Valley.
May started in law but fell in love with the idea of using social entrepreneurship to solve the world’s problems.
May answers Terri’s question about how the tall poppy syndrome has influenced May in her life.
May is working on bringing the best parts of the Silicon Valley to Australia.
My comments on how helpful people have been to her in getting into investing. May has taken the opportunity to reach out to people in a very intentional way and follow up after meeting at events.
Terri discusses the importance of saying ‘why not me?’ instead of ‘why me?’ especially for women.
Terri observes that May’s natural authenticity is very attractive and charming and hard to resist.
May talks about how being of the Baha’i Faith influenced her view of the world from day one and later started to live them as a result of her personal choosing when she was in her twenties.
Terri talks about the importance of taking the leap without having it all figured out.
May shares what she started to do when she was overanalyzing a situation. She said that she would sit across from herself at the table and provide herself with her own advice.
If May had a magic wand, she would make all of us more human and compassionate and living life in the moment.
May’s favorite investor resources are Venture Deals and Information.

Terri’s Key Takeaway

If you believe you can do it, you can do it.

References in the Podcast

Terri’s Due Diligence Event with Spero Ventures on 8/1/18: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/due-diligence-digging-in-with-investors-tickets-47146445287
Women Get Funded: http://www.womengetfunded.com/
Urban Innovation Fund: http://www.urbaninnovationfund.com/
The Jolly Swagman podcast with May’s interview: https://thejollyswagmen.com/new-blog/maysamali
Tall poppy syndrome: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tall_poppy_syndrome
Ada: https://www.ada-accelerator.com/
Feminist Fight Club: https://www.feministfightclub.com/
Silicon Allee: http://www.siliconallee.com/
Venture Deals: https://www.amazon.com/Venture-Deals-Smarter-Lawyer-Capitalist/dp/1119259754/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1532047043&sr=8-1&keywords=venture+deals
The Information: https://www.theinformation.com/reporters/jessica-e-lessin

Contact

You can follow May on Twitter @maysamali or reach her via LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/msamali/

You can follow Terri on Twitter at @terrihansonmead or go to her website at www.terrihansonmead.com or on Medium: https://medium.com/@terrihansonmead.

Feel free to email Terri at [email protected].

Who is May Samali?

Show Highlights

Terri shares how she met May on the Connected Homes pitch panel at Launch Festival in 2017 which was an all-women panel.
May shares her journey from Australia to the Silicon Valley.
May started in law but fell in love with the idea of using social entrepreneurship to solve the world’s problems.
May answers Terri’s question about how the tall poppy syndrome has influenced May in her life.
May is working on bringing the best parts of the Silicon Valley to Australia.
My comments on how helpful people have been to her in getting into investing. May has taken the opportunity to reach out to people in a very intentional way and follow up after meeting at events.
Terri discusses the importance of saying ‘why not me?’ instead of ‘why me?’ especially for women.
Terri observes that May’s natural authenticity is very attractive and charming and hard to resist.
May talks about how being of the Baha’i Faith influenced her view of the world from day one and later started to live them as a result of her personal choosing when she was in her twenties.
Terri talks about the importance of taking the leap without having it all figured out.
May shares what she started to do when she was overanalyzing a situation. She said that she would sit across from herself at the table and provide herself with her own advice.
If May had a magic wand, she would make all of us more human and compassionate and living life in the moment.
May’s favorite investor resources are Venture Deals and Information.

Terri’s Key Takeaway

If you believe you can do it, you can do it.

References in the Podcast

Terri’s Due Diligence Event with Spero Ventures on 8/1/18: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/due-diligence-digging-in-with-investors-tickets-47146445287
Women Get Funded: http://www.womengetfunded.com/
Urban Innovation Fund: http://www.urbaninnovationfund.com/
The Jolly Swagman podcast with May’s interview: https://thejollyswagmen.com/new-blog/maysamali
Tall poppy syndrome: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tall_poppy_syndrome
Ada: https://www.ada-accelerator.com/
Feminist Fight Club: https://www.feministfightclub.com/
Silicon Allee: http://www.siliconallee.com/
Venture Deals: https://www.amazon.com/Venture-Deals-Smarter-Lawyer-Capitalist/dp/1119259754/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1532047043&sr=8-1&keywords=venture+deals
The Information: https://www.theinformation.com/reporters/jessica-e-lessin

Contact

You can follow May on Twitter @maysamali or reach her via LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/msamali/

You can follow Terri on Twitter at @terrihansonmead or go to her website at www.terrihansonmead.com or on Medium: https://medium.com/@terrihansonmead.

Feel free to email Terri at [email protected].

Previous Episode

Why Darryl Grant started Inspiring Connectivity to bring women together.

Who is Darryl Grant?

Darryl Grant is a New York native, born in Harlem. He has 20 siblings and is uncle to over 50 nieces and nephews. He has been a Bay Area resident for the last 4.5 years and enjoys family time with his wife and 2.5 year old son, supporting his clients’ needs, sports (former Div-I Greco-Roman wrestler), reading, traveling, cooking, and supporting diversity and inclusion.

Darryl is Managing Director of Merrill Corporation and Founder of Inspiring Connectivity. He has over 19 years of financial communication experience with the top three financial printers. Darryl began as a Customer Service Project Coordinator in Manhattan and later assumed various managerial roles and engineered XBRL operations for two Manhattan offices. Before assuming his role as Managing Director of Sales where he co-leads Merrill’s Bay Area Capital Markets team, Darryl spent 6 years as a Capital Markets Account Manager leading teams and working directly with C-level execs, law firms, corporate finance and legal departments to manage IPOs, mergers, spin-offs along with all routine SEC filing requirements. He has also managed three of the largest mergers in stock market history and over 20 prominent IPO’s in industries ranging from Tech, e-commerce, transportation, motion pictures, Biotech, retail and broker exchange services.

Show Highlights

Darryl starts off by talking about the event he puts on with his team called Inspiring Connectivity and why he, as a man, is putting on an event for women.
Darryl talks about growing up in New York and about his mom who noticed a trend where children were being left behind. This led her to adopting 18 children and raising a total of 21 of which Darryl was one of those adopted by her.
Darryl shares how he worked with a coach who taught him that because he was having trouble with who he was, he was having trouble coming across authentically.
Darryl was inspired to create an event for women because of the 2016 elections, the issues women were facing that were coming to light, and a conversation with a friend who fully supported him creating the event. He was inspired by what his mother created around community.
Terri comments on how important it is for Darryl to set the example for other men to create these kinds of events to support the change for women in society. This is a human issue; not a women’s issue.
Darryl observes that solving problems begins with community.
Terri talks about her experience at Inspired Connectivity with Barbara Tien and how Barbara introduced her to the other women at the event. This made Terri realize that she is having an impact even though she doesn’t always see it.
Terri commented that a lot of founders don’t take the time to get to know her and how important it is to be seen as a person and not just as a checkbook.
Terri asked Darryl about tribalism in a global community and he responds with the importance of connecting and community.
Darryl talks about the importance of getting out of your own head when designing an event and thinking about what the guests are going to want.
Terri asks Darryl if people give him a hard time for not focusing on women of color or people of color and he says that for the most part, no.
Darryl talks about breaking down the platform, the panel, the awards and focus on the people at events.
If Darryl could wave a magic wand, he would use it to genuinely connect people without bias.

Terri’s Key Takeaway

Creating and building connections and community will be the key to solving our societal issues.

References in the Podcast

Inspiring Connectivity: https://inspiringconnectivity.splashthat.com/
Merrill Corporation: https://www.merrillcorp.com/en/
Barbara Tien (Ponga): https://www.linkedin.com/in/barbaratien/
Vanessa Grant: Instagram: @beautysecretary

Contact

Darryl can be reached through LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/darryl-grant/.

You can follow Terri on Twitter at @terrihansonmead or go to her website at www.terrihansonmead.com or on Medium: https://medium.com/@terrihansonmead.

Feel free to email Terri at [email protected].

To continue the conversation, go to Twitter at @PilotingLife and use hashtag #PilotingYourLife.

Next Episode

Lesley Jane Seymour discusses leveraging the power of women over the age of 40 to change the world.

Who is Lesley Jane Seymour?

Lesley Jane Seymour. Lesley is a media entrepreneur and founder of CoveyClub, a new club for lifelong learners that she launched in February of this year. The CoveyClub is for women over the age of 40 and has virtual salons, a monthly magazine, a daily blog, and a weekly podcast for women to bond over issues of interest and concern.

Lesley was named Editor-in-Chief of More Magazine in 2008 and was Editor-in Chief and Social Media Director of More.com. Before More, she served as Editor-in-Chief of Marie Claire and Redbook magazines, and teen book YM. She was Beauty Director of Glamour and Senior Editor at Vogue. She is author of two books, On the Edge, 100 Years of Vogue, and I Wish My Parents Understood. In 2013 she was named Chair of the Editorial Advisory Board for Duke Magazine and a Global Ambassador for Vital Voices. She is a trustee at Dana Hall School in Wellesley, Massachusetts.

Show Highlights

Lesley shares what CoveyClub is and why she created it. She expands on how women over the age of 40 are disenfranchised and being left out of the conversations.
Terri comments that technology has increased the sense of loneliness and how ironic it is that Lesley is using technology to reduce the loneliness and bring women together.
Terri talks about the importance of getting together in person to fill her soul.
Lesley observes that there are no longer places for people to come together like offices, town squares, religious institutions, and community centers.
Lesley named the company CoveyClub after a small group of birds. She wants the groups to be small and provide ways for women to get to know who is in the room.
Lesley talks about having a significant career and an amazing life and wants to be able to help women connect and help their dreams come true.
Lesley knows that if you want better content, you’ll have to pay for it and she believes that others are looking for this.
Lesley comments that right now our politicians in Washington DC don’t stay in town to eat together, to get to know each other, to see the humanity in each other, to be able to reach across the aisle to work together.
Terri comments that we need to be intentional about coming together in person to connect as humans. Terri loves how her city, Redwood City, makes a lot of effort to bring people together at various events around town.
Terri talks about how quickly women over the age of 40 are overlooked and easily dismissed. Lesley talks about how when we were in our 20s, we were seen as T&A and now she would like us to be seen for our $19T in assets that have control over.
If Lesley had a magic wand, she would make Donald Trump go ‘poof’ and disappear. Terri talks about the fear from the patriarchy who are trying to keep things as they were, and she hopes that we take this as an opportunity to slingshot forward. We need to drag everyone we know to the polls to make a difference in November.
Lesley’s favorite founder resources are Hello Alice and the group that she is created to provide her with support (the red cup club).

Terri’s Key Takeaway

Technology rather than bringing people together is leading to a sense of loneliness and isolation and it is time to reconnect in person.

References in the Podcast

CoveyClub: https://www.coveyclub.com/
Hello Alice: https://helloalice.com/
CoveyClub podcast on reinvention: https://www.coveyclub.com/podcast/

Contact

Lesley can be reached via email at [email protected] or on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/lesleyjaneseymour/.

You can follow Terri on Twitter at @terrihansonmead or go to her website at www.terrihansonmead.com or on Medium: https://medium.com/@terrihansonmead.

Feel free to email Terri at [email protected].

To continue the conversation, go to Twitter at @PilotingLife and use hashtag #PilotingYourLife.