Education
Columbia Business School, MBA
Class of 2023
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I graduated from Columbia Business School where I studied venture capital and entrepreneurship. ​ Leadership and extracurriculars include Managing Director of Columbia Venture Fellows, VP of Education for the Venture Capital Club, VP of Finance for the Black Business Students' Association, StartU Scout and AVP of Education for the Venture Capital Club.
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Relevant coursework includes Accounting, Business Strategy, Strategic Business to Business Marketing, Managerial Economics, Foundations of Venture Capital, Venture Capital Seminar, How to Build a VC Investment Thesis, Introduction to Entrepreneurship, Social Entrepreneurship for the 21st Century, Product Management
College of the Holy Cross, BA
Class of 2016
In addition to receiving Dean's List Honors in six semesters, I was named to Patriot League Academic Honor Roll four consecutive seasons for outstanding academic performance as a student-athlete. and a senior CLASS nominee in 2015, which you can learn about here.
Leadership included Women's Basketball Senior Captain, Finance Club Executive Board Member, Working for Worcester volunteer, and Student Programs for Urban Development participant.
Relevant coursework includes Microeconomics, Macroeconomics, Economics of Development, Econometrics, Advanced Research Methods, Financial Accounting, History of Economic Thought, and Statistics.
Experience
SemperVirens Venture Capital, Investor
January 2024 - Present
The Social Entrepreneurs Fund, Investment Consultant
June 2023 - December 2023
Harlem Capital, Graduate Fellow
January 2023 - May 2023
Columbia Venture Fellows, Managing Director
June 2022 - December 2022
BBG Ventures, MBA Associate
June 2022 - December 2022
Munich Re Ventures, Intern
June 2021 - August 2021
Republic, Venture Associate
March 2021 - August 2021
J.P. Morgan, Commercial & Investment Bank
Associate: Jan 2019 - May 2021
Analyst: Sep 2016 - Dec 2018
SemperVirens is a leading venture capital firm investing in B2B tech startups reshaping the worlds of health, wealth and work. The SemperSystemTM – a proprietary operating system built on SemperVirens’ network of investors, entrepreneurs, expert advisors, employers, and strategic distribution partners – amplifies the performance of our portfolio companies and our funds.
TSEF is an early stage VC fund focused on fintech, healthcare, and future of work companies. As an investment consultant, my focus included identifying private sector verticals that can be disrupted to support women’s reproductive health, including sizing and mapping the market, curating a pipeline, and finding and assessing early-stage startups focused on women’s health.
After completing an internship cycle at Harlem Capital, high-performing interns are invited back to serve as Fellows at Harlem Capital. Fellow responsibilities include overseeing intern operations, managing inbound deal flow, and running diligence processes for high-priority deals. As a Fellow, Raquel also completed a comprehensive research project on preparing minority founders to successfully navigate from seed to Series A.
Columbia Venture Fellows is a highly competitive program that prepares Columbia Business School students for a career in venture capital through a two-year intensive curriculum. After serving as a Columbia Venture Fellow with Oak HC/FT and completing a thesis on Fintech in LatAm, I was selected by students and faculty to serve as Managing Director of the program during my 2nd year at Columbia.
BBG Ventures is an early-stage fund backing big ideas that will reshape the way we live. BBGV focuses on female founders who intuitively understand the dominant consumer, enabling them to address the collective or individual lived experience of the 99%. Female founders are poised to do giant things and BBGV is there to give them that first, crucial investment.
Munich Re Ventures works closely with the Munich Re Group to fund and partner with the best emerging companies that are developing new technologies and business models to address risk. As one of the global providers of insurance-related risk solutions, Munich Re is uniquely positioned to help the world adopt new innovations by transferring the risks from invention and by developing solutions for loss prevention.
Republic Venture Associates is a program for MBA and mid-level career participants interested in learning the fundamentals of VC and angel investing. The program covers sourcing, due diligence, deal terms, investment memos, investment theses, and branding. The program also offers an opportunity to receive live deal experience through Republic investment team as well as mentorship from Venture Partners.
In addition to my work in investment banking, as an associate I participated in a firm wide competition for digital ideas that enhance client engagement, improve internal efficiencies, provide new revenue streams and grow the firm’s digital business capabilities. My team's idea for a blockchain enabled KYC application was awarded First Place out of 469 ideas submitted globally.