Bio

Mandela’s career in Silicon Valley has given her an unparalleled perspective of the tech industry. At the age of 25, Mandela dropped out of her PhD program to start her first tech company, and she became one of the first Black women to raise venture capital from Silicon Valley investors. Mandela was later appointed the Global Director of Startup Weekend Education (acquired by Techstars), where she scaled its reach from two to six continents in less than two years and transformed it into the largest community of edtech entrepreneurs in the world. Mandela was then recruited to become the founding Portfolio Services Director at Kapor Capital, managing a portfolio of over 120 tech startups, including Uber and Twilio. There, she co-launched the Founders Commitment, the first diversity and inclusion pledge upheld by a VC firm, and she co-designed 10 workshops teaching startups how to bake diversity and inclusion into the DNA of their companies. In 2017, Mandela launched her second company, Founder Gym, which became the #1 training program teaching underrepresented founders how to raise venture capital. In its first four years, over 600 founders spanning 26 countries and 6 continents graduated from Founder Gym. 1 out of every 10 Black women to raise $1 million or more is a graduate of Founder Gym. Most recently, Mandela served as the CEO of All Raise, a non-profit with a mission to accelerate the success of women in tech. 84% of all women check-writers (at funds with >$25M AUM) are in the All Raise community, and investors from +200 venture capital firms are represented. Mandela is an active angel investor, limited partner, Sequoia Capital Scout, and an inaugural member of First Round Capital's Angel Track program, composed of angel investors from the most successful tech companies. Mandela is a respected thought-leader, who has shared her frameworks for success on over 150 stages and in more than 100 publications. Mandela has received various recognitions, including being named Entrepreneur magazine’s 100 Most Powerful Women, Forbes' Women to Watch, and LinkedIn's Top 10 Voices in Venture Capital and Startups. Mandela has a Bachelor's Degree in Intercultural Communications, a Masters Degree in Education and Administration & Policy, and she was a PhD candidate in Urban Schooling at UCLA. Mandela played collegiate soccer in the ACC, the top division in U.S. women's soccer, and she was voted Captain her freshman year.