Today, I’m thrilled to share that I’ve joined FirstMark as a Partner and Head of Platform.

From the outside, FirstMark has always stood out to me as a firm that values real depth—of thought, of relationship, of commitment to its founders—and I’ve admired their rare ability to be deeply engaged, without ever becoming prescriptive. The FirstMark team has backed iconic companies like Shopify, Pinterest, and Airbnb, AI/Data pioneers like Synthesia, Dataiku, and ClickHouse, and they’re still just getting started. From the inside, it’s even better.

And let’s be honest: there’s no better place to build than New York. The sheer density and diversity here from talent and industries to customers and capital, makes NYC a uniquely generative place for ambitious ideas and humans. FirstMark bet on NYC before it was cool (back in 2005, when saying you worked at a startup in New York usually got you a confused look and a polite ‘good luck with that’) and has helped shape the ecosystem ever since.

Today, that shows up as flagship events like CEO Summit at the NYSE and CloudNY, to communities like Data Driven NYC, Fintech Driven, and the FirstMark Guilds (3,000+ members strong representing more than 80% of global tech unicorns) where executives come together to share the stuff that doesn’t make it into a tweet or Substack post. It’s access, at scale, that actually means something. 

If you’ve known me for any stretch of time, you know I love the company-building journey. The early moments, when the picture is still fuzzy, the conviction irrational, the team tiny, and the odds long. But also the later moments, when the market shifts and the product doesn’t quite fit the same, the team needs to hire in the next layer of talent, or the company is evolving from scrappy to scaled.

I love working alongside ambitious, creative, and slightly unreasonable people, helping to shape and sharpen the story, and get the guts of a business off the ground. I’ve done this across startups, growth companies, and scaled platforms. I’ve been the operator, the advisor, the co-conspirator, and the one sending late-night decks. And now, I get to do this work as a Partner to founders at FirstMark supporting them at every stage along their path.

This move is both a continuation and a homecoming. I’ve spent my career at the intersection of technology, brand, and strategy—most recently as a MD & Partner at BCG, leading the global Digital Ventures/BCGX Business Build team, where we helped conceive, build and launch hundreds of new products, services and businesses for (mostly) large corporates. Before that, I was the GM at Kickstarter, supporting creators bringing their incredibly unique projects to life, the CEO at Interbrand, built and led innovation practices at IDEO, ultimately moving to NYC to lead and build their New York studio and prior at both Ford and Trilogy. Across it all, the most rewarding part has never changed: being in the trenches with ambitious teams as an idea becomes real, and then resilient.

FirstMark is built for this. The opportunity to work shoulder-to-shoulder with the founders shaping what’s next, and to do it with a team that’s curious, rigorous, values-driven, and wildly fun, felt like a very hard yes.

As the Partner focused on Platform, I’ll be helping to bring the full weight of the FirstMark ecosystem to bear: equipping our portfolio companies with the connections, insights, and resources they need to scale effectively, adapt quickly and build enduring businesses. Whether you’re still at the whiteboard, navigating early product-market fit, or thinking about how to scale something special, I’m so very excited to be along this ride with you.

Onward ✌️
Beth