Jennifer Hill: building women leaders

Jennifer Hill is Vice President of Astia, a nonprofit community of experts that propels women’s full participation as entrepreneurs and leaders in high-growth businesses, fueling innovation and driving economic growth.

Astia provides innovative programs to exceptional women-led start-ups that ensure companies gain access to capital, achieve and sustain high-growth, and develop the executive leadership of the women on the founding team.  Astia works with companies of all stages that have at least one woman in a C-level or founder role and represent the technology, life sciences, clean technology, digital media and consumer products industries.

Headquartered in Silicon Valley with programs in Silicon Valley, New York, London, and (in late 2010) India, Astia works with start-ups from around the globe.  Since its inception 10 years ago, Astia has directly impacted over 835 women-led companies.  Today, Astia is a community of over 750 volunteer experts (entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, angel investors, corporate leaders, and value add service providers) committed to building women leaders and accelerating the funding and growth of the companies they lead.  Astia boasts an exceptional success rate.  Since 2003, companies that have presented at Astia Investor Forums have raised over $600M, achieved a greater than 60% funding success rate within one year of presenting, and have realized 17 exits, including 2 IPOs.

Jennifer told us how Astia has evolved and what they are currently focusing on: 

Astia was originally founded as the “Women’s Technology Cluster” in 1999 by Cate Muther, a senior marketing executive at Cisco Systems, as a part of her Foundation, The Three Guineas Fund.  The WTC started as an incubator to assist women-led technology companies with a focus on new media technologies.  In 2003, the WTC was spun-out of the Foundation as an independent 501(c)(3) not for profit organization.  Over the years, the organization realized that its greatest asset was the community and thus the business of incubation was abandoned and the name was changed to better reflect the network of men and women, a broad focus on technology, and a community building the rising stars of women entrepreneurs.

The Astia model is to connect Astia companies to a community of investors, industry leaders, advisors, and service providers through programs and networks.  Astia’s programs are designed by entrepreneurs for entrepreneurs and led by investors, industry leaders and seasoned entrepreneurs, to enable participants to succeed in a high-growth enterprise.  The companies Astia serves rapidly scale to obtain investment, and serve as successful examples of women-led companies to inspire and encourage current and future generations.  Astia is focused on building out its global platform and accelerating exceptional women-led start-up companies with its vibrant and active community of experts.