Welcoming Julie Bell to Team Emergence
We are proud to welcome Julie Bell as the firm's first-ever COO.
As an equal partnership, there is no single GP at Emergence who wants to run the show. This is by design. We pride ourselves on being a true team. As with any good team, each person plays their position. Sometimes, we don’t move as quickly as we’d like because no one takes the ball. As we grow, we want to make sure we focus on both team and performance. We knew we wanted to add someone with a seat at the table that could help us be 10x better.
We are proud to say we have found that person in Julie Bell, who has joined Emergence as our first-ever Chief Operating Officer.
I will never forget my first Zoom meeting with Julie. I was in the middle of a snowstorm in the Sierra, running on a generator as over six feet of snow had cut power. In the middle of this chaos, I felt in sync with Julie within the first 45 seconds. I recall an immediate connection and had a sense that she deeply understood who she is and what she loved to do. We connected over our belief that if you make a team better, you are amplifying your own talents and strengths. I was struck when she said she wants the world to "turn ego down, and team up." That captures the core of what Julie brings to Emergence, our industry, and the world.
Getting to know Julie, we were impressed by her incredible competence running a 600+ person office at Bain, as well as being a partner in a private equity firm, and CEO and COO roles in multiple companies. What truly stood out is her remarkable reputation as a “servant leader”. We talked with dozens of people about Julie and common remarks were “inspirational leader”, “the engine of the office,” and “advocate and coach.” Everyone pointed to her ability to manage complexity. They described her as someone who just gets the job done, but more importantly as a person everyone trusts, even if she is delivering tough news. We knew that her ability to do the right thing for the firm, while valuing people and long-term relationships, would make her a perfect fit for Emergence.
As we prepare for the journey ahead, Julie will be our unfair advantage. She will help us balance competing priorities, and develop the talent on our team. She will work side-by-side with the expert operators on our platform team to invent our post-investment strategy, and grow our entrepreneurial community in the Emergence Way. Over time, I’m confident Julie will be a whole new voice in our industry, and be a force for positive change.
We are proud to welcome Julie to Team Emergence. It hasn’t been long, but it feels like she’s been here forever. The partners and I are so excited about what we can do together. This is already showing up in decisions we’ve struggled with (large and small) that are now in the rearview mirror. We are making better decisions, faster.
As we begin to invest our sixth fund, and our first opportunity fund, Julie is the catalyst we need for our next phase of growth as we continue to turn ego down and team up!
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