There’s so much power that comes from building within the community, and Ita Ekpoudom knows her role in being the change the world needs.

As a partner at Gingerbread Capital, it is Ekpoudom’s mission to educate, engage and elevate the next generation of successful women leaders in business.

For the latest episode of AfroTech’s Black Tech Green Money, Will Lucas takes on New York to learn more about the venture capital (VC) that emerges from the city of dreams along with input from Ekpoudom on how to become a successful venture capitalist.

During the episode, Ekpoudom explained the two aspects that can lead folks on the right path to securing that dream VC role.

“There’s kind of two main ways,” she explained. “You come in from finance with either an investment banking or consulting background or as an ex-operator and entrepreneur, which would then allow you to move over from the perspective of having been an operator.”

She also shared the background that led her on this journey as a VC.

“I did the traditional big corporate job, and then I actually went to a smaller private equity-owned company,” Ekpoudom continued. “I saw the difference between private equity, which is looking at a later stage of more established businesses, and venture capital which is looking at the earlier stage. I think for me, what kind of made the difference was that when you’re going into private equity, these companies have been around for decades, maybe longer than that, and they’re being acquired.”

On the VC side of things, she explains that it’s full of fresh ideas and new beginnings.

“Venture [capital] is about new [beginnings] and starting things at the beginning,” she shared. “I think around the time that I made the decision to leave traditional corporate America, I was reading all of these articles that were saying that women don’t want to be CEOs and that they just want to create kind of lifestyle businesses without looking to be at the top.”

It was those articles that encouraged Ekpoudom to create a space for women business owners to thrive.

Find out more by listening to the full episode of Black Tech Green Money podcast below:

Women-led businesses

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