"The Talent Wars: How to Attract, Grow and Retain the World’s Best Employees" Panel

Peter Clarke joined Accel in 2013 and leads Accel’s talent efforts - focused on building high value relationships across our network of amazing people and helping our entrepreneurs build high performance teams.

Prior to Accel, Peter was VP of Executive Talent at Greylock. He joined Greylock from True, a boutique retained executive search firm, where he was a founding partner.

Before shifting into the world of entrepreneurs and executive talent, he was a software architect for Boeing, and one of the last projects he worked on was the comprehensive services system that would support Boeing's newest airplane.

Peter is a native Californian who also spent a good chunk of his life on the East coast. He graduated from SUNY Brockport with a degree in Computer Science, and he holds a Masters in Software Development from CMU.

"Leading Through Difficult Financial Environments" Panel

Jeff Immelt joined NEA in 2018 as a Venture Partner working with innovative, growth companies in healthcare, industrial automation, clean tech and IoT. His primary focus is to help founders grow and win. He is the author of HOT SEAT, a memoir of leadership in times of crisis, and teaches a course on leading through disruption at the Stanford Graduate School of Business.

Jeff served as chairman and CEO of GE for 16 years where he revamped the company’s strategy, global footprint, workforce and culture. During his tenure, he led several innovative transformations that doubled industrial earnings, reshaped the portfolio, re-established market leadership, grew a strong share position in essential industries, and quadrupled emerging market revenue.

Jeff has been named one of the “World’s Best CEOs” three times by Barron’s. During his tenure as CEO, GE was named “America’s Most Admired Company” by Fortune magazine and one of “The World’s Most Respected Companies” in polls by Barron’s and the Financial Times. He has received fifteen honorary degrees and numerous awards for business leadership and chaired the President’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness under the Obama administration.

Jeff earned a B.A. degree in applied mathematics from Dartmouth College and an M.B.A. from Harvard University. He currently serves on the board for NEA portfolio companies: Collective Health, Radiology Partners, Tri Alpha Energy, and Transfix. In addition, he is on the public boards of Bloom Energy, Desktop Metal, Bright Health, Hennessy Capital V, and Twilio. He is also on the private board of Sila Nanotechnologies. Jeff is a member of The American Academy of Arts & Sciences. He and his wife have one daughter.

"Leading Through Difficult Financial Environments" Panel Moderator

Vanessa Larco joined NEA as a Partner in 2016 and focuses on Enterprise SaaS and Consumer Services investing. She is passionate about technology, services and products that enable people to be more productive and efficient at work and at home. Vanessa has led investments in EvidentID, Cleo, Greenlight Card, Feather, and Lily AI. She is also a board observer at Robinhood and OmniSci.

Prior to joining NEA, she was the Director of Product Management at Box (NYSE: BOX) where she worked on building the next generation of productivity apps across web and mobile. Her passion for design and analytics stems from her experience in the gaming industry, which includes leading the Speech Recognition Experience team at Xbox Kinect v1, and building a top grossing gaming studio at Disney Social.

Vanessa holds a BS in Computer Science from the Georgia Institute of Technology.

"The Talent Wars: How to Attract, Grow and Retain the World’s Best Employees" Panel

While Nicole joined Lightspeed in early 2019 to help lead the firm’s executive talent function, she’s been working closely with the Lightspeed team and portfolio for many years — from helping build transformational teams at enterprise companies like AppDynamics and Aerohive to consumer companies such as Rothy’s and Haus Beauty, to name a few.

Before Lightspeed, Nicole spent nearly a decade at executive search firm, SPMB, where she founded the firm’s dedicated consumer practice. It was an exciting opportunity given SPMB’s legacy of building the best enterprise organizations in the world, and a natural challenge for Nicole as she spent the first half of her career working for Korn Ferry International’s Consumer Digital practice. Lyft, Rent The Runway, Coinbase, Capital One, Instacart, Walker & Co., Yelp, Nerdwallet, and Oculus are just a few of the companies she’s successfully served throughout the years.

Nicole was a Regent’s Award Scholarship recipient at Seattle University where she received her bachelor’s degree in International Business and studied abroad at the University of Maastricht in the Netherlands. Born in Brazil and a citizen of the United States, Brazil, and Portugal, Nicole has a deep appreciation and love for different cultures and spends most of her free time riding bikes or building train tracks and "LEGO everything" with her husband and two young children in Marin.

"The Talent Wars: How to Attract, Grow and Retain the World’s Best Employees" Panel Moderator

Gabby’s an HR leader passionate about creating great work environments, scaling culture and finding, growing, and keeping talented people. Many of Gabby’s philosophies were shaped by her time at Google, where she focused on building a culture of openness, autonomy, and transparency. She's used that experience to help organizations big and small build thriving cultures. Currently, Gabby is the Chief People Office for FullStory, where she has led its growth from 50 to 600+ employees.

Gabby has a BA from the University of Pennsylvania and an MBA from NYU’s Stern School of Business. She lives in Atlanta with her husband Morris and sons Lev (7) and Aiden (4). A native NYer, she's on the quest for the best bagel in the ATL.

"The Talent Wars: How to Attract, Grow and Retain the World’s Best Employees" Panel

Melissa works closely with founders and CEOs to build, develop, and retain best-in-class executive teams and boards. She designed the CEO leadership program, Invictus, to foster a community of NEA leaders who support one another and propagate best practices across the portfolio. Melissa brings broad operating experience from the technology and healthcare sectors, along with a passion for building relationships, to cultivate leaders who will build life-changing companies with global reach.

Melissa began her career in technology at Qualcomm (supply chain management), Hewlett Packard (global contract manufacturing strategy) and Netopia (strategic technology alliances). She then transitioned to healthcare as President of Drip Drop, Inc., building an oral-rehydration product and realizing her passion for improving human health through creative technology solutions. She joined Khosla Ventures as an Operating Partner before joining NEA as a Partner in 2015.

Melissa grew up in South Africa before coming to the United States to attend the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the University of San Diego, where she earned her MBA. South Africa provided her with her guiding philosophy, Ubuntu, which recognizes that we are all bound together in ways that are invisible to the eye and that we rise by lifting others.