Jess Lee (business)

Jess Lee (born 1982) is an American venture capitalist. She is a partner at Sequoia Capital[1] and the former chief executive officer of Polyvore.[2][3]

Lee in 2013

Early life

Jess Lee lived in Hong Kong until the age of 17, when she graduated from Hong Kong International School, then moved to California to pursue a bachelor's degree in computer science at Stanford University,[4] though she had initially been interested in attending art school.[5]

Career

In 2004, Lee was recruited into Google's associate product manager (APM) program,[4][6] which had been founded and was then still led by Marissa Mayer.[7] Lee started work on Google's shopping engine Froogle[6] before becoming product manager of Google Maps.[4] There she worked with a team of five engineers to create My Maps, a project that allowed users to create maps of their own.[6]

She joined Polyvore as a product manager in 2008 after providing co-founder Pasha Sadri with feedback on issues with the website.[8] Lee initially wrote code for Polyvore but later started to handle social media, hiring, and finding new locations for the office.[4] Her role expanded to honorary co-founder in 2010 and she was promoted to CEO in 2012.[6] Lee then guided the company to cut down on features such as the "Ask" section and opened another office in New York City.[6]

In 2016, she joined Sequoia Capital as an investing partner,[9] becoming the venture capital firm's first female partner in the United States in 44 years of operation.[10] Hired at age 33, Lee became one of Sequoia's youngest partners.[11]

Personal life

She currently resides in Mountain View, California.[4]

References
  1. Groth, Aimee (November 20, 2016). "Introverts can use vulnerability to become strong leaders". Quartz. Retrieved 2017-08-28.
  2. Croffey, Amy (April 21, 2016). "Why Polyvore fashion CEO Jess Lee 'wears a uniform'". Sydney Morning Herald.
  3. Tate, Ryan. "How One Startup Found Success by Making an Obsessive User Its CEO". WIRED. Retrieved 2017-08-28.
  4. Lien, Tracey (September 2, 2016). "How I Made It: Jess Lee's unlikely path to running Polyvore". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 2016-10-04.
  5. D'Onfro, Jillian (September 14, 2014). "How One Complaint-Filled Letter Landed This Ex-Googler At Her Dream Job". Business Insider. Retrieved 2017-08-28.
  6. Roberts, Daniel (2015-08-02). "How Polyvore CEO Jess Lee got started". Fortune. Retrieved 2016-10-04.
  7. "15 questions with Jess Lee". CNNMoney. Retrieved 2017-08-28.
  8. Naughton, Julia (April 19, 2016). "Polyvore CEO Jess Lee Is Cracking The Code On Diversity In Fashion". Huffington Post Australia. Retrieved 2016-10-04.
  9. Loizos, Connie (20 October 2016). "Jess Lee of Polyvore joins Sequoia Capital as its 11th investing partner". TechCrunch. Retrieved 20 October 2016.
  10. Benner, Katie (20 October 2016). "Sequoia Capital Hires First Female Investment Partner in U.S." The New York Times. Retrieved 21 October 2016.
  11. Hartmans, Avery (October 20, 2016). "One of Silicon Valley's oldest and most successful venture capital firms just hired its first female investing partner". Business Insider. Retrieved 21 October 2016.
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