Can you start by sharing a little about yourself?
As the founder and CEO of Parenthood Ventures, I lead a platform which supports the leaders of over 500 early stage ‘ParentTech’ startups: Startups which serve young families, from reproductive health, through to navigating the teen years. In my previous professional life, I spent many years in Strategy Consulting.
I’m originally from England. Since arriving in the United States I have lived in multiple cities, including Boston, New York, San Francisco, and Miami.
What inspired you to start Parenthood Ventures?
It was so clear to me, in becoming a parent, that there was massive potential for a better suite of services and products to address the needs of young families. Startups in the sector face multiple headwinds, but it seemed like the greatest gap was the opportunity for founders to meet and support one another.
How has your work with early-stage, family-focused startups shaped your perspective on supporting NNP families?
My work reaffirms to me a key message of NNP: All challenges can be made easier by finding and engaging with a community. Whether it’s by receiving direct advice, accessing camaraderie and a listening ear, or, down the road, having the opportunity to pay it forward to newcomers, there are so many parallels between the support NNP provides to refugees and my work at Parenthood Ventures.
What inspires you the most about the work NNP does?
I am inspired by the way that NNP forges long term linkages within the community, and leverages an age-old ‘gifting’ tradition between families that brings much more warmth than the simple transfer of money.
It is such a natural behavior for families of all walks of life to receive and give ‘hand-me-down’ clothing from older to younger children, which alleviates any stigma around accepting ‘charity’.
I would love to see NNP in every place that refugees settle. This could include a physical presence, or a digital offering to support those who might be distant from a resettlement hub.
In light of the current climate of uncertainty and fear around immigration, what role does NNP play in building understanding and support for our new neighbors?
People often fear what they do not know. They can be reluctant to support things that feel abstract, or that benefit groups they have not yet met within their day-to-day lives.
By introducing local volunteer families and refugee families to one another, and by sharing refugee stories, NNP serves to humanize the refugee experience on two levels: Firstly, in facilitating direct support from local families to newly-arrived refugee families, to ease their transition into American life; but in doing so, NNP also succeeds in introducing real examples of the refugee experience into the daily consciousness of community members, helping to build awareness and support for the importance of refugee programs.
What are some of your personal interests or hobbies outside of your professional life?
I love to hang out with my kids, to travel and to immerse myself in other countries and cultures. I am endeavoring (very slowly) to learn the Greek language.
If you could share one message about why folks should get involved in supporting refugee families in their community, what would it be?
We can all relate to being “new” somewhere, on some level - whether it’s recalling the first day of school, or at a new workplace. As you will recall from these experiences, the smallest acts of support and guidance can make the world of difference in easing the transition.
Many of us have the privilege of never having needed to seek refugee status in a foreign land, but I hope our own, smaller, experiences of “newness” enable us to understand the lasting power of a warm welcome, and allows us to extrapolate the outsized impact that this can have for refugee families in their transition from fresh arrivals into established community members.
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Charlotte is the Founder and CEO of Parenthood Ventures, the platform for early stage ParentTech which is home to more than 500 startups serving parents and children. Charlotte is a graduate of Oxford University and holds an MBA from Harvard Business School. She spent almost a decade in Strategy Consulting at The Boston Consulting group across the London, San Francisco and New York offices, where she specialized in Media, Tech, and M&A. Following her consulting career, she founded Parenthood Ventures to address the innovation gaps she saw across the sector after starting her family.
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