Kara Nortman Was Just Promoted to Co-Managing Partner at Upfront Ventures. Here’s What it All Means

On October 26, 2020, Upfront Ventures announced Kara Nortman as becoming Co-Managing Partner at Upfront Ventures.

“As with all promotions, the reality is that Kara was already acting as a senior leader at our firm and also in the industry at large,” said Mark Suster, General Partner at Upfront Ventures. “She had all of the skills and traits we sought — leadership, mentorship, competitiveness, communications, relationship-building — and of course a relentless pursuit of helping founders succeed.”

He continues, “In any job you either find leadership opportunities for your best people BEFORE they ask or other people start asking them to become leaders somewhere else. Leadership is about recognizing your next generation of talent and helping lift them up. Or, maybe it’s just about getting out of the way and watching what they can achieve.”

“Our industry needs more female leaders and they shouldn’t have to all quit their respective firms and raise their own funds to get a shot at running things. The fact that Kara doesn’t have what my wife likes to refer jokingly as my “Y chromosome problem” is beside the fact. She’s more qualified than I and I know she’ll eventually eclipse the things that Yves and I have built over the past couple of decades.”

“Venture capital is about backing the leaders of tomorrow who imagine the world as it should be and aren’t constrained by what it is today. As an industry we’re not always as good as we could be about our own “creative destruction” to create the tomorrow of venture capital. It’s time to prepare Kara to help smash some more glass ceilings.”

You can read the full announcement here.