Victoria Ransom is a serial entrepreneur from New Zealand. She has developed three companies including Wildfire Interactive, a social marketing

SaaS Software as a service (SaaS ) is a software licensing and delivery model in which software is licensed on a subscription basis and is centrally hosted. SaaS is also known as "on-demand software" and Web-based/Web-hosted software. SaaS is con ...

company, where Ransom was chief executive officer until it was sold to

Google Google LLC () is an American Multinational corporation, multinational technology company focusing on Search Engine, search engine technology, online advertising, cloud computing, software, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, ar ...

in 2012. Ransom currently resides in

Palo Alto Palo Alto (; Spanish for "tall stick") is a charter city in the northwestern corner of Santa Clara County, California, United States, in the San Francisco Bay Area, named after a coastal redwood tree known as El Palo Alto. The city was es ...

. Ransom was listed as one of ''Fortune's'' Most Powerful Women Entrepreneurs as well as one of their

40 under 40 ''Fortune'' magazine's 40 Under 40 is a list of individuals the publication considers to be the most influential young leaders for the year. The list has existed in two phases: First, from 1999 to 2003, the list was presented purely as a numeric ...

in 2012. In 2015, she was named a Young Global Leader by the

World Economic Forum The World Economic Forum (WEF) is an international non-governmental and lobbying organisation based in Cologny, canton of Geneva, Switzerland. It was founded on 24 January 1971 by German engineer and economist Klaus Schwab. The foundation, ...

Education

Ransom was raised on an asparagus farm in Scotts Ferry, near Bulls, New Zealand. In her final year at Whanganui Girls' College, she won a scholarship to attend international high school

United World College United World Colleges (UWC) is an international network of schools and educational programmes with the shared aim of "making education a force to unite people, nations and cultures for peace and a sustainable future." The organization was founde ...

New Mexico ) , population_demonym = New Mexican ( es, Neomexicano, Neomejicano, Nuevo Mexicano) , seat = Santa Fe , LargestCity = Albuquerque , LargestMetro = Tiguex , OfficialLang = None , Languages = English, Spanish ( New Mexican), Navajo, Ke ...

. She then attended

Macalester College Macalester College () is a private liberal arts college in Saint Paul, Minnesota. Founded in 1874, Macalester is exclusively an undergraduate four-year institution and enrolled 2,174 students in the fall of 2018 from 50 U.S. states, four U.S te ...

, where she earned her BA in psychology and graduated '' summa cum laude'' in 1999. Ransom received her

MBA A Master of Business Administration (MBA; also Master's in Business Administration) is a postgraduate degree focused on business administration. The core courses in an MBA program cover various areas of business administration such as accounti ...

from Harvard Business School in 2008.

Career

After graduating from Macalester, Ransom moved to

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

where she worked as a business consultant. Later, she moved to

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

and worked for investment banking firm

Morgan Stanley Morgan Stanley is an American multinational investment management and financial services company headquartered at 1585 Broadway in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. With offices in more than 41 countries and more than 75,000 employees, the fir ...

. She left the company in 2001 and founded Access Trips, an adventure travel company in New Zealand. Ransom co-ran Access Trips for five years before returning to the US to attend business school. While at Harvard Business School, Ransom co-developed a distributed booking system for small and medium size travel companies, resulting in a summer at

Highland Capital Partners Highland Capital Partners is a global venture capital firm with offices in Boston, Silicon Valley, and San Francisco. Highland has raised over $4 billion in committed capital and invested in more than 280 companies, with 47 IPOs and 134 Acqui ...

as an

Entrepreneur in Residence An Entrepreneur in residence, or Executive in residence (EIR), is a position most often held by successful entrepreneurs in venture capital firms, private equity firms, startup accelerators, law firms or business schools. The EIR typically lea ...

. In 2008, Ransom founded Wildfire Interactive, a social marketing software company initially developed to help promote Access Trips. Ransom ran Wildfire as chief executive officer and grew the company to 400 employees in four years. In 2010, she sold Access Trips. In 2012, Google bought Wildfire for a reported $450 million and Ransom became the Director of Product at Google. She was named

Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award The EY Entrepreneur of the Year Awards previously Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Awards is an award sponsored by Ernst & Young in recognition of entrepreneurship. Founded in 1986 in Milwaukee as a single award, as of 2016 twenty-five pro ...

for New Zealand in 2011. In 2013, she was invited to the

White House The White House is the official residence and workplace of the president of the United States. It is located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., and has been the residence of every U.S. president since John Adams in ...

Barack Obama Barack Hussein Obama II ( ; born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, Obama was the first African-American president of the ...

to receive a "Champion of Change" award recognizing her contributions as an immigrant entrepreneur. In 2015, she was awarded the World Class New Zealander award along with former New Zealand Prime Minister,

Helen Clark Helen Elizabeth Clark (born 26 February 1950) is a New Zealand politician who served as the 37th prime minister of New Zealand from 1999 to 2008, and was the administrator of the United Nations Development Programme from 2009 to 2017. She was ...

. In 2016, she was NEXT Woman of the Year in the Business and Innovation category. In 2020, Ransom co-founded Prisma, a remote education startup.

Personal life

In college she met Alain Chuard, also a Macalester student and Ransom's future business partner. The two married in March 2013 and had a daughter in 2014.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ransom, Victoria New Zealand women chief executives Living people Year of birth missing (living people) Harvard Business School alumni People educated at a United World College Macalester College alumni People educated at Whanganui Girls' College People from Bulls, New Zealand Carnegie Endowment for International Peace