What to Expect from the Webinar:
Rapid Ventures: How We Advise Growth Differently
Discover how Rapid Ventures partners with market-ready climate tech startups to drive decarbonization and create economic opportunities. Learn about their unique approach in offering growth advisory and non-dilutive funding for early-stage commercialization.
Our Speaker:
Gillian has more than 20 yrs of experience in financial markets/financial services, private markets, real estate, real assets, energy, venture investing, impact investing, fintech, and climate tech (including cleantech and carbontech) with organizations like JP Morgan, Citigroup, Société Générale (Fimat USA, Inc.) and Lockheed Martin Energy.
Prior to attending the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College, Gillian worked in the financial markets for almost 10 yrs, specifically in Futures & Options, Forex, and Commodities. She began her career in Legal/Compliance and Risk, and transitioned to M&A focused on acquiring trading groups that were being divested by various futures & options operations at major financial institutions. At JP Morgan, Gillian was part of a team that established the first remote/virtual clearing operations on the Montreal Exchange and other strategic fintech expansion opportunities.
Gillian has experience across a broad array of structuring, investment, and portfolio management functions related to fund-, company-, and asset-level investments. At Citi Community Capital (Citigroup), she managed the investment process from origination and structuring through deal closing, for a $750 million portfolio of social and environmental impact private equity and real asset funds, co-investments, and direct equity investments and non dilutive funding for financial inclusion, clean energy, job creation, workforce housing, and smart equitable cities.
Gillian developed her expertise in climate tech, cleantech, carbontech and venture investing by managing a strategy team at Lockheed Martin Energy that assisted tech startups in the development of their tech products and solutions, helping the startups accelerate commercialization by partnering them with Lockheed Martin Energy utility and commercial and industrial clients. Since 2016, Gillian has been working with incubators/accelerators such as Cleantech Open Northeast, Columbia Technology Ventures, NSF I-Corps, Techstars and Dartmouth Greenshot as a Mentor and Entrepreneur-in-Residence helping startups with customer discovery and market segmentation, accelerating their products and solutions to commercialization, and investment-readiness.
Gillian serves/has served as a board member for non-profit organizations like Be Ready, Reading Partners, WISE (Women Investing for a Sustainable Economy), and Key Collegiate Charter School. An amateur squash player, Gillian shares her love for the sport with kids as a mentor and supporter for StreetSquash and the Squash and Education Alliance.
Find Gillian D. Francis on LinkedIn!
https://www.linkedin.com/in/gillianfrancis1/
About Rapid Ventures:
Rapid Ventures is a novel climate tech venture studio and ecosystem builder that provides financial and operational support to market-ready startups in: Advanced Buildings, Mobility & Logistics, Clean Energy/Grid Modernization, and “Hard to Abate” Industries.
Rapid is rolling admission offering hands-on curated and individualized approach to each startup’s needs in the pilot to early commercialization and initial scaling stage of a startup’s lifecycle.
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