Lisa Lambert has come a long way from her childhood in Toledo, Ohio, raised by a single mother in subsidized housing.
At age 55 – after a two-decade career at Intel and a stint in cleantech investing with the Westly Group – she is a prominent Silicon Valley venture capitalist with the lofty ambition of transforming global energy. As founder and president of National Grid Partners, the venture capital arm of the London-based National Grid utility that also provides energy to customers in New York and Massachusetts, she has already directed investments of $350 million into 40 startups that are designed to address climate change and increasing demand, including from a surge in electric vehicles.
She has also dedicated herself to supporting other women and minorities in business. Not only did she lead Intel’s Diversity Fund, but she founded a nonprofit network of women executives called Upward, which now boasts 30,000 members in 20 chapters.
Next on her list of goals? Run a multi-billion dollar fund from her Los Gatos office.
How did this Black woman with humble origins enjoy such a “meteoric rise?” And why, despite her decades of success, does she still face obstacles? And what is she doing to share her lessons along the way?
We talked with her to find out:
Q: As a leader in venture capital and as a woman, you’re certainly part of a smaller group. What were your aspirations when you were younger and what shaped you into a leader?
A: I came from a single-parent home and didn’t have very many role models to look to from a professional standpoint. We were poor. I was a latchkey child. But what I discovered early in my life was that if I applied myself, I could achieve whatever I wanted, and that my circumstances didn’t have to be a deterrent for me having a vision. And I remember this distinctively: When I was in fourth grade, I came home to my mom and I said, ‘Mom, I realize I can get any grade that I want to, if I work hard and apply myself.’ That was essentially the spirit of it. I think I took that principle and I just ran with it. There was really no reason for me to be encouraged about my future. All of my siblings really didn’t have successful professional lives. They were nice people, but they were poor people growing up in an environment that wasn’t all that conducive to children breaking out. And yet I broke out and I did because I believed that I could, and I learned that very early in my career. I had a lot of great teachers and I had folks that poured their lives into me, and encouraged me and I think it gave me the courage to pursue my dreams.
Q: What were those dreams?
A: I planned that I was going to get my MBA from Harvard. And so I started pursuing all the work that I needed to get prepared for that. I didn’t get in the first time, but I did get in the second time when I applied and really, from there, my life moved to a trajectory that I don’t think I had anticipated. But I’m definitely flying in the clouds now. And that’s not something that I think I knew when I was in fourth grade, but it’s certainly something that I imagined could happen. So that’s how I began.
Q: As you got older, what was a turning point or particular stumbling block you had to overcome?
A: The challenges became real when I got to a senior level. After I graduated from Harvard Business School, I made my way out to the Bay Area. And this is in 1997, the dot-com media was still very high. And I joined Intel, this legendary company, doing product marketing engineering. Then I made my way into Intel Capital after about four years, and started investing. And you’d be amazed at how many people can ignore you when you’re in the lane that doesn’t draw that much attention because you don’t have that much power or that much authority. I progressed very quickly, and got to VP by 2006 and then ended up running the software and services practice at Intel Capital for more than a decade. And so I had a meteoric rise. When I got my VP stripes, that was a really big deal. Once I got that position, it was amazing how much opposition you start to experience. Whether it’s because of envy or it’s because they don’t think you’re smart enough or you got it because you’re a woman or ethnic minority or whatever the reason – it became a much more competitive and much more aggressive environment. There’s a certain amount of competition in venture capital just in general, but this was taken to a new level.
Q: Do you believe part of that opposition was because you were a woman of color?
A: I’ve never really gotten to the bottom of it. So I’m not sure that it was. I’m not even sure that it matters what the reason was, but it just became more difficult….It didn’t discourage me. It was different and it made it more difficult, and you can see why women and people of color give up because there are not a lot of fellow travelers, there aren’t a lot of role models that you can look to. Nor are there a lot of mentors that you can seek out because the demographic doesn’t look like you and so there aren’t natural allies that you can call to. So you had to tough it out. And one of the things that I did as a response to that increased intensity and competition was form Upward Women.
Q: Tell me about Upward – this nonprofit network of executive women.
A: I’m there thinking, you know, I’ve had a very, very kind of a meteoric rise to seniority, one of very few women and minority women that are leading large investment teams managing more than a billion dollars in assets under management. And I’m having these difficulties in an environment where I should be rewarded because I’m outperforming. I’m thinking of all the other women that are having these challenges, and minorities that are having these challenges. And so I said, let’s get together with other women – as much to help me to be a source of encouragement and support for me, but also to help other women that I know are going through the same thing. We had our first meeting in the backyard of my house. I expected to have 40 or 50 of my senior colleagues and I ended up having 90 people in that first meeting, 130 people in the second meeting and Upward was born in 2013 on the backs of this difficulty that I was having.
Q: Do you feel like you’re still in the midst of the struggle or do you feel like you’ve moved beyond it?
A: My challenges have not gone away. If anything, they’ve increased the more seniority you get, the more responsibility you get, the more of a spotlight you get on you. And so you got to be ready to to manage your success you’ve got to be able to deal with the complexity that comes with success and the spotlight … There is no Nirvana. You’re not going to find a place where you don’t have conflict for humans. And you know, humans disagree and there’s always going to be conflict. I think the triumphant part of the story is how you overcome it.
Lisa Lambert
Title: Chief Technology and Innovation Officer at National Grid and Founder & President of National Grid Partners, responsible for leading investments and innovation initiatives across the company.
Age: 55
Education: Bachelor of Science in management information systems from Penn State; MBA from Harvard Business School.
Family: Married with two sons, ages 13 and 11
