McGinn, K. & Tempest, N. (2010). Heidi Roizen. Harvard Business School.
Heidi Roizen is a successful venture capitalist, who grew her career by leveraging her network over the years. She appreciates the advantages of networking and maintains relationships with her strong contacts in the center, so she doesn’t have to nurture the ones on the periphery. This tactic allows her to maximize her time.
Ms. Roizen landed her first job out of college contacting a friend who worked at the company. She got her MBA from Stanford University by leveraging her boss for a recommendation. From that point on, she improved her networking skills by only contacting parties when she could add real value and reciprocating favors whenever possible.
Roizen possesses a growth mindset and always pushes herself out of her comfort zone. She raised her profile with speaking engagements, attending conferences, and joining the boards of companies in her industry. In 1996, Steve Jobs tapped her to become VP of Worldwide Developer Relations at Apple to bolster support among her tech industry contacts for the lagging brand. She left Apple in 1997 to nurture the development of startups as a “mentor capitalist”.
I’m fascinated by the way she consciously builds her network and connects strong ties to weak ties. She’s famous for hosting networking parties in her home and only inviting people she finds interesting. Her story has inspired me to network within and outside of Northwestern to raise the volume of DEI efforts around the country. Networking is simply contacting people in different industries to benefit the interests of both parties. I don’t network to get something. I network to share information and solve problems that people of color face every day.
L4: Apply communication-centered scholarship to strengthen communication effectiveness.
D1: Iteratively develop inter-professional leadership competencies.
D2: Utilize communication to embrace complexity and difference
Keywords: Heidi Roizen, networking, venture capitalist, mentor capitalist, strong ties, weak ties, connections
