Prime for Growth Episode 5 - Kristina Milke, Innovating thru Venture Capital Artwork

Prime for Growth! Conversations with Everyday Innovators

Prime for Growth is a podcast devoted to de-mystifying the journey of innovation. As entrepreneurs, we wear a lot of hats every day. One of the most important is being the internal provocateur (or hiring, and then encouraging them to survive on your team). The last few decades have seen innovation move from a way of thinking to an exultation in the ears of venture capitalists everywhere. But what about every day innovation? Not so sexy. In most businesses, innovation is always a small 'i' : removing a redundant process, automating a task, shifting infrastructure to better serve the clients, identifying friction in your business, or simply investing in a real, vulnerable way in culture and how that might be holding your team back from their own greatness. In Prime for Growth, we explore these ideas and bring innovation back into the everyday, through conversation with entrepreneurs who are facing, and solving, hard truths in their businesses. Guts doesn't always lead to glory, but while small "i" innovation has definitely turned straw into gold for some, the investment in innovation helps our entrepreneurs experience change, growth, a light in the tunnel, better bottom line results, and a better night's sleep.

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Prime for Growth! Conversations with Everyday Innovators

Prime for Growth Episode 5 - Kristina Milke, Innovating thru Venture Capital

July 10, 2021 • Prime Capital Group • Season 1 • Episode 5

Today we are exploring the strange and wonderful world of Venture Capital. Kristina Milke started her career as a chartered accountant, with ambition, but an unformed game plan. Being open to opportunity however, brought her to one intersection after another, where she was able to stretch her boundaries and grow her talents in some really diverse organizations.

From industrial supply, to aerospace, to her tenure at the incredibly innovative growth company Intuit, her last employee role before launching into venture capital, was as CEO at Investopedia working on its sale. She credits her life journey to having an innovation mindset – being ambitious to learn, but open minded about what form that learning would take.

Today Kristina is supporting her favourite type of startups, technology, into scaling opportunities, while mentoring the founders behind them using her own hard earned leadership and investment skills. VC is innovating itself – as an industry traditionally dominated by niche risk takers, all the way through to the IPOS where big investment banks flourish, there is a growing peer to peer investment community supported by regional and national angel funds whose investment theses cover almost any type of business vertical market. Through mentorship, networking and focused collaboration, there are some amazing things happening in the world of growth and venture capital that are putting many new entrepreneurs squarely on the map.