Heather Hiles

I'm an investor, entrepreneur, and technologist with a 30-year track record for creating and scaling non-profit and for-profit organizations that improve millions of lives. My career has been driven by the belief that a company is only as good as the people who power it.As the sole founder of Pathbrite, I conceived and developed the first cloud-based digital portfolio platform. With Stanford University as my first customer, I raised $12 million in venture capital and launched the company in 2012. Three years later, I sold it to Cengage Learning. Today, Pathbrite is used by hundreds of colleges and universities, with 6 million active users. For many years, I held the dual distinction of being the only Black female founder to have raised the most venture capital and the one to have orchestrated the best exit.In addition to Pathbrite, I have founded or co-founded SFWorks (delivered job-skills training to women on welfare), EARN (helped tens of thousands of people acquire assets), The Hiles Group (managed philanthropic and investment portfolios worth more than $2 billion), and Calbright College, a (statewide online college that teaches job competencies and gets people hired into tech jobs). I have advised numerous startups including Pivotal Ventures, Melinda Gates’s investment firm. I also served as deputy director of post-secondary success solutions for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, where I made direct investments, invested in emerging funds, and made over $300 million in grants. In that role, I was asked to advance the foundation’s equity agenda.Today, I am the Managing Partner of Black Ops Ventures, a venture capital fund investing 100% in black founders of tech companies. I was included in the 2021 Forbes 50 Over 50: Impact list.I serve on the boards of Udemy, (a multibillion-dollar online education giant), OppZo (a company that lends money to small and mid-sized businesses), Luminary Media (podcast company), and Made in Africa, (an African textile business that began as a woman-owned sewing cooperative in Liberia). I also serve on the boards of two non-profit organizations: Black Girls Code and NextGen Directors’ Academy. Previously, I served as communications director for Gavin Newsom, ran rapid response media for the first Clinton/Gore campaign, and advised the Obama for America campaign.I was born in Los Angeles, California and lived in the Bay Area for 35 years. Now, my partner and I live in Miami, Florida.