56 | FORBES ASIA APRIL 2018

A

ileen Lee stared at the email in her drats

folder for nearly a month, unsure what to

do. he summer of 2017 had been bru-

tal for venture capital. One San Francisco

irm, Binary Capital, was evaporating as a

partner resigned over allegations of sexual

harassment. Accusations of inappropriate

sexual advances and afairs would soon

lead cofounders of two other prominent

irms—500 Startups and multibillion-dol-

lar irm DFJ—to resign. Silicon Valley was

facing a reckoning, an early #MeToo mo-

ment, months before that scandal radiat-

ed out of Hollywood.

Over that July, Lee, a veteran venture

capitalist who ranks 97th on this year’s

Midas List, made the decision to take

a risk. Addressing a note to 2 3 women

she called the “breakfast club”—most-

ly friends in partner roles at other VC

irms—Lee proposed they team up to

help women enter the venture industry

and rise through the ranks. “hink we all

have the same feelings—that the stuf that

has recently been highlighted in articles

about the gender power dynamic, harass-

ment and the lack of women in VC is just

not okay,” she wrote. “We have a window

to try and come up with changes for our

industry for the better.”

he 48-year-old Lee had paid her dues

in venture’s relationship-driven industry,

spending 1 3 years at storied irm Klein-

er Perkins Cauield & Byers before found-

Jess Lee, 35

PARTNER, Sequoia Capital

ASSETS UNDER MANAGEMENT: $8 billion (est.)

NOTABLE DEALS: Dia & Co, TuneIn

After the “roller coaster” of building commerce site Polyvore and selling it to

Yahoo for $230 million, Jess Lee says that as an investor in “the sisterhood,”

she’s excited to back other female founders in turn. “I don’t have a problem

being known as someone who invests in girly things,” she says. “I think they

can make a lot of money.”