“Success is going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm.” — Winston Churchill
Ana has lived all over the United States (including 7 different states before the age of 4) but will always consider herself a proud native East Coaster. Growing up in the suburbs of Princeton, New Jersey, her desire to explore a new city led her to Boston, where she attended Northeastern University.
At the D’Amore-McKim School of Business, Ana was able to kick start her business career studying Finance and Accounting while also minoring in International Affairs. She also took advantage of Northeastern’s “co-op program,” which allowed her to work full-time (up to six months) at a variety of companies: including PwC in Boston, Wellington Management Company in London, Morgan Stanley in New York City, and Summit Partners. This experience is where she cut her teeth in growth equity and tech investing.
During her senior year, Ana and a few friends founded Huntington Angels Network, a platform for connecting top-tier student startups with Boston-area angels and VCs. Ana remains an advisor and has since expanded into a dedicated venture fund, investing in and partnering with student founders looking for pre-seed and seed-stage financing. Ana’s interest in building genuine connections with tech founders and helping them on their journey ultimately led her to Founders Circle.
Building upon the passions discovered in college, Ana kicked off her career in investment banking at Piper Jaffray in New York City before switching coasts and accepting a role at Qatalyst Partners in the Bay Area. Ana leveled up her experience at Qatalyst, advising clients on multi-billion dollar M&A transactions in the enterprise software, consumer internet, mobile and hardware spaces. As a people person, Ana finds herself very much drawn to founders that have a unique perspective and are not afraid to follow their passions, just as she had done. Seeing an opportunity to build a career helping those kinds of founders grow and scale their businesses, Ana jumped at the chance to join the passionate and like-minded team at Founders Circle.
In her free time, Ana loves traveling and experiencing new cities and cultures as much as possible (skydiving in New Zealand is next on the bucket list!). An avid fitness nut, she also loves going to workout classes from Pilates to hot yoga to Barry’s. Ana is also a big fan of exploring and taking in her local surroundings – you can catch her attending outdoor concerts of her favorite artists, at the beach attempting to get better at surfing, or searching for the best-iced latte in SF.
by Charles Shannon
