Caroline Winnett is the

executive director Executive director is commonly the title of the chief executive officer of a non-profit organization, government agency or international organization. The title is widely used in North American and European not-for-profit organizations, though ...

of the

Berkeley SkyDeck Berkeley SkyDeck (SkyDeck) is a high-tech entrepreneurship startup accelerator and incubator program at the University of California, Berkeley serving as a joint venture between the Haas School of Business and Berkeley College of Engineering ...

startup accelerator at the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...

. She is a serial

entrepreneur Entrepreneurship is the creation or extraction of economic value. With this definition, entrepreneurship is viewed as change, generally entailing risk beyond what is normally encountered in starting a business, which may include other values t ...

, civic activist, angel investor, advisor and board member of several

startups A startup or start-up is a company or project undertaken by an entrepreneur to seek, develop, and validate a scalable business model. While entrepreneurship refers to all new businesses, including self-employment and businesses that never intend t ...

, and a frequent speaker on startups, accelerators, women in business and consumer neuroscience.

Education

Winnett attended Brown University as an undergraduate and got her violin performance degree in 1984 from the Indiana University School of Music. In 1990, Winnett earned her MBA from the Berkeley Haas School of Business. In a 2018 interview, Winnett said that she created her own major in Entrepreneurial Operations because at that time there were no programs at Berkeley for entrepreneurs.

Civic activism and Berkeley landmarks

Save Berkeley Iceland

In 2008, Winnett was a founder and spokesperson for Save Berkeley Iceland, advocating for the preservation of the 67-year old Olympic-sized historical ice rink in

Berkeley, California Berkeley ( ) is a city on the eastern shore of San Francisco Bay in northern Alameda County, California, United States. It is named after the 18th-century Irish bishop and philosopher George Berkeley. It borders the cities of Oakland and E ...

. She appeared on local ''NBC News'' to raise donations and also petitioned the city council. Winnett and the group were able to raise $50,000 and advocated turning the rink into a nonprofit, but in the end were not able to save the rink from closure.

SkyDeck signage petition

In July 2017, Winnett successfully petitioned the Berkeley city council after a 10-month review process to approve signage on the tallest building in

downtown Berkeley Downtown Berkeley is the central business district of the city of Berkeley, California, United States, around the intersection of Shattuck Avenue and Center Street, and extending north to Hearst Avenue, south to Dwight Way, west to Martin Luther Ki ...

, formerly known as the PowerBar building or the Chase Building due to previous signage. The highly-debated building signage named the building "SkyDeck" after Winnett's nonprofit organization, the Berkeley SkyDeck accelerator located on the penthouse floor. Those opposed to the petition argued that the signage was "advertising" and not architectural, while advocates including Winnett argued that the name SkyDeck reflected the Berkeley spirit of innovation. In the end the SkyDeck Building petition was unanimously approved by the council.

Career

NeuroFocus

In 2006, Winnett co-founded startup

NeuroFocus NeuroFocus was a neuromarketing and neuroscience research company founded in 2005 by a group of academics and engineers from UC Berkeley that focused on applying neuroscience, neurology, and neurological testing to a wide range of fields such as ...

, a company that measures how consumers react to advertising using neurological measurements using EEG sensors. Nielsen Holdings acquired NeuroFocus in 2011.

UC Berkeley SkyDeck

Winnett joined

as executive director in 2015, three years after its original founding as a mentoring space. As the new director, Winnett added staff and worked to partner with the resources already in place at Berkeley. With a colleague, Winnett helped to secure a $150,000 grant to build The Berkeley Startup Network platform so that startup resources at Berkeley would be accessible in one place. In a 2018 interview with ''Xconomy'', Winnett noted that the number of SkyDeck startup advisors had increased from 30 to 140, and that the penthouse accelerator had also taken over an additional floor of the high-rise building it was housed in, located next to Berkeley campus. In Spring 2018, Winnett and SkyDeck raised a $24 million oversubscribed venture fund from investors Sequoia Capital, Mayfield,

Sierra Ventures Sierra Ventures is an American venture capital firm based in San Mateo, California. It is focused on early stage emerging technology companies. History The firm was founded by Peter Wendell in 1982 in Menlo Park, California. Early investments ...

and others. Managed by Winnett's colleague Chon Tang, the Berkeley SkyDeck Fund began offering $100,000 each to startups in return for 5 percent ownership, beginning with a cohort of 20. In a 2019 blog, Winnett expressed a goal that the Berkeley SkyDeck Fund would bring $1 billion in revenue to UC Berkeley in the future.

Cal Performances

Winnett also serves on the Board of Trustees for

Cal Performances Cal Performances is the performing arts presenting, commissioning and producing organization based at the University of California, Berkeley in Berkeley, California. The origins of Cal Performances date from 1906, when stage actress Sarah Bernhardt ...

, a UC Berkeley performing arts organization.

Public Speaking

Winnett was the opening speaker at the 2020 Taiwan-US Innovation Forum, and urged companies in the 2020

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identi ...

environment to "focus on the basics", "don't be afraid to change course", and "look for new opportunities". Winnett has also spoken at venues such as the Milan Innovation District and the

Rhodes House Rhodes House is a building part of the University of Oxford in England. It is located on South Parks Road in central Oxford, and was built in memory of Cecil Rhodes, an alumnus of the university and a major benefactor. It is listed Grade II* on ...

at the

University of Oxford , mottoeng = The Lord is my light , established = , endowment = £6.1 billion (including colleges) (2019) , budget = £2.145 billion (2019–20) , chancellor ...

talking about the future of work and innovation.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Winnett, Caroline Haas School of Business alumni American women investors American venture capitalists Living people 21st-century American businesspeople American women company founders American women chief executives Year of birth missing (living people) 21st-century American businesswomen