Diversity-focused funds, a global tax deal, and 3D printed spaceships
Welcome to Nº 28 of In The Money, your weekly newsletter on keeping up with all things finance, tech, and startups. As always, this week’s newsletter is filled with all the financy things. This week we learned that women and minorities are still underrepresented on corporate boards. The Japanese behemoth, Softbank launched its diversity-focused fund in Europe. The world’s largest economies agreed on a historic global tax deal. Apple held its annual WWCD before a crowd of Memojis. Katrina Lake’s Stitch Fix reported better-than-expected earnings. Jeff Bezos is going to space and you can auction for a seat on the ship with him. Chinese ride-hailing giant, Didi filed to go public in what is expected to be the biggest IPO this year. This and much more. I hope you enjoy this edition.
Women and minorities are still underrepresented on corporate boards 🤦🏻♀️
After last year’s events with the pandemic, historic Black Lives Matter protests, and an economic crisis that disproportionately sidelined women, the corporate world vowed to be more inclusive. But little has changed in corporate boardrooms; boards have been, and continue to be, predominantly male and white, according to a new study by the Alliance for Board Diversity and Deloitte. The study found that white women gained the greatest number of seats, increasing their presence at Fortune 100 companies by 15% and at Fortune 500 companies by 21%. However, in total, they still represent just about a fifth of all board seats. Minority women (which includes Black, Hispanic and Asian women) represent the smallest slice of boardrooms at both Fortune 100 at around 7% and Fortune 500 at around 6%. More than half of newly appointed directors last year were white men. Notably, the report found that 36% of diverse board directors sat on multiple Fortune 500 boards. The ABD and Deloitte report analyzed data only until last June. Other more recent data from the research firm Institutional Shareholder Services found that since last July, the number of Black directors on boards of S&P 500 companies increased by nearly 200%, representing 32% of all newly appointed directors, up from 11% in 2019. Almost half of them were new to publicly-traded company board services. Even before the protests, there was growing pressure for boardroom diversity from financial institutions, like Goldman Sachs, BlackRock, and Nasdaq. The movement is driven in large part by growing evidence showing that diverse leadership correlates with better business performance. And as a result of 2018, legislation in California, almost all of the more than 600 public companies based in the state now have at least one female board member. Substantial change will still take time. A typical tenure of a board director is 8 years and adding more seats can be costly.
Softbank’s diversity-focused fund 💰
On Wednesday, SoftBank Investment Advisers, which manages the Japanese conglomerate’s Vision Fund for tech investing, said it will launch its diversity-focused Emerge accelerator program in Europe. The company first introduced Emerge last year in the US together with WeWork Labs (the office rental firm’s start-up incubator), to back 14 start-ups whose founders come from underrepresented backgrounds. So far in the program, they have invested $5 million across 13 start-ups. Now, SoftBank is bringing Emerge to Europe, but this time, it’s bringing in Speedinvest and a number of other notable venture capital investors in the continent to provide access to a broader network of potential investors and partners. Other venture capital funds participating in the European program include Cherry Ventures, firstminute capital, and Kindred. Start-up accelerator programs are a common way for entrepreneurs to get access to mentorship in the early days of building their company. Several well-known tech firms, such as Stripe, Airbnb, and Coinbase applied for accelerator schemes and went on to launch successful businesses. Two key differences between conventional accelerator programs and SoftBank’s is that the latter not only focuses on founders from Black and other minority backgrounds, it also invests in the companies. Last year’s events with the murder of George Floyd and subsequent Black Lives Matter protests sparked discussions in boardrooms about how companies should address diversity. Tech is a sector that has gotten a bad rap for diversity, with people working in the industry predominantly white and male. In Europe, about 91% of venture capital was allocated to start-ups with all-male founding teams last year, according to Atomico’s State of European Tech report. Furthermore, 62% of underrepresented founders found it more difficult to raise cash, up from 31% in 2019. You can read more about the Emerge program here.
Historic tax deal 🤝
Last weekend, the finance ministers of the most advanced economies, known as the Group of Seven (G7), backed a US proposal that calls for corporations around the world to pay at least a 15% tax on earnings. In a video statement, last Saturday UK Finance Minister Rishi Sunak announced: “G-7 finance ministers today, after years of discussions, have reached a historic agreement to reform the global tax system, to make it fit for the global digital age — and crucially to make sure that it’s fair so that the right companies pay the right tax in the right places.” If finalized, it would represent a significant development in global taxation. Members of the G-7, which include Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the UK, and the US. An agreement among this group would provide needed momentum for upcoming talks planned with 135 countries in Paris. Finance ministers from the Group of 20 are also expected to meet in July. “That global minimum tax would end the race-to-the-bottom in corporate taxation and ensure fairness for the middle class and working people in the U.S. and around the world,” US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen tweeted. Initially, US President Joe Biden and his administration suggested a minimum global tax rate of 21% in an attempt to prevent countries luring international businesses with low or zero taxes. However, after tough negotiations, a compromise was reached to set the bar at 15%. A global deal in this field would be good news for cash-strapped nations, who are trying to rebuild their economies after the pandemic crisis. But Biden’s idea was not received with the same level of excitement across the world. For example, the UK did not immediately voice its support for the proposal. The issue can be contentious within the European Union as well, where various member states charge different corporate tax rates and can attract big-name firms by doing so. For example, Ireland’s tax rate is 12.5%, while France’s can be as high as 31%. Of corporates, Facebook said it expected it would have to pay more tax, in more countries, as a result of the deal. Furthermore, ministers agreed to move towards making companies declare their environmental impact in a more standard way so investors can decide more easily whether to fund them.
Apple’s WWCD 📱
On Monday Apple held its annual Worldwide Developers Conference (WWCD). This time in a unique setting where CEO Tim Cook spoke before a crowd of Memojis. It was clear that Apple is preparing for post-pandemic life with a lot of new tools that would have been helpful during the pandemic. Some of the focus areas announced included:
Privacy: Apple unveiled new versions of its operating systems which showed that the company’s focus on privacy has taken a new turn. It’s not just a corporate ideal or a marketing point anymore. It’s now a major initiative across Apple distinguishing its products from the competition. Monday’s announcements showed that Apple’s privacy strategy is now part of its products: Privacy was mentioned as part of nearly every new feature and got stage time of its own. To bolster its reputation as Silicon Valley's privacy leader, Apple is adding on-device speech processing for Siri, extra private browsing on Safari, and the ability to disable tracking pixels in email.
Competition: Speaking of competition, starting this fall, the decade-long spat between Apple and Facebook will start a new chapter. This time Apple encroaching Facebook’s territory in ways it never has before because iPhone users will be able to hold FaceTime video calls with Android and Windows users for the first time. They will also be able to use a new feature called SharePlay, which lets you hold a FaceTime call and watch a streaming movie, listen to music, or share your screen with your contacts. iMessage is getting a boost as well, with new features that make it easier to share web links, photos, Apple Music tracks and Apple News articles with your contacts. In a nutshell, Apple is laying the groundwork for a suite of social features designed to let you do a lot of what you would normally do on Instagram and Facebook (only with more emphasis on privacy).
Focus tech: To help you stay on task, Apple will let users batch notifications and order them by priority, add a Focus mode to limit interruptions from non-work-related apps and friends, and add work, sleep, or do not disturb statuses to their Messages app.
Other: There will be new features for developers to build apps in the cloud. You can upload your ID to Apple Wallet to use for TSA screening. You can unlock your car or front door from an iPhone. Cooler maps. And trusted contacts to get you back into iCloud if you forget your new password.
Stitch Fix beats expectations again 🛍
On Monday Stitch Fix shares soared after the online shopping and styling service reported a narrower-than-expected loss in its fiscal third quarter. Sales also topped analysts’ estimates. Sales were driven by consumers refreshing their wardrobes for summer vacations and the office and looking for styles in new sizes. After the report, shares were up around 15% in extended trading. The company also raised its revenue outlook for the full year, after previously lowering it due to the uncertainty stemming from the pandemic. President and incoming CEO Elizabeth Spaulding (she is taking over from founder Katrina Lake who was featured as the Woman of the Week in a previous edition of ITM) noted that as the apparel retail backdrop improves across the US, the company is building momentum. Stitch Fix’s active client count grew 20% year over year to 4.1 million and was up 234,000 from the previous quarter. The company defines active clients as people who have bought an item directly from its website in the preceding 52 weeks from the last day of the quarter.
Here’s how Stitch Fix did during the period ended May 1 compared with what analysts were expecting:
Loss per share: 18 cents vs. 27 cents expected
Revenue: $535.6 million vs. $511 million expected
Warren Buffett invests in Nubank 🏦
On Tuesday, the Brazilian digital bank, Nubank announced a $750 million extension to its Series G (which rang in at $400 million this past January), bringing the round to a total of $1.15 billion and the company’s valuation to $30 billion. The extension funding was led by Berkshire Hathaway, which put in $500 million. Nubank co-founder, Cristina Junqueira was featured as the Woman of the week in a previous edition of ITM. In 2013, together with the Colombian businessman David Velez they decided to reinvent the Brazilian banking system. Nubank is the biggest digital bank in the world by number of customers: 40 million. The company started in Brazil offering only a fee-free credit card with a line of credit of 50 Brazilian Reals (about $10). Today it offers a variety of financial products, including a digital bank account, a debit card, insurance, P2P payment via Pix, loans, rewards, life insurance, and an account and credit card for small business owners. Nubank serves unbanked or underserviced citizens in Brazil which is about 30% of the population. This approach can be extremely profitable because there are many more clients available. The banking system in Brazil is one of the few bureaucracies in the country that is actually quite skillful, but the customer service remains unbearable, and banks charge exorbitant fees for any little transaction. Brazil remains Nubank’s primary market, but the company also offers services in Colombia and Mexico (services launched in Mexico in 2018). The company still only offers the credit card in both countries.
Automated driving 🚗
Computer scientist and the artificial intelligence expert who led a team of Toronto-based engineers for Uber’s self-driving vehicle program, Raquel Urtasun is launching tech startup Waabi with an $83.5 million funding round. Waabi approaches commercializing automated driving with a new “AI mindset”. The Series A round, which is among the biggest for any Canadian tech startup, is led by Khosla Ventures with other investors included Uber, Radical Ventures, 8VC, OMERS Ventures, and BDC Capital’s Women in Technology Venture Fund. Waabi isn’t disclosing a company valuation based on the Series A, nor has it said who will sit on its board. Waabi (the name is inspired by an Ojibwe word meaning “she has vision”) aims to set itself apart from other companies that have already raised billions of dollars, such as Waymo, Cruise, Zoox, Argo AI, TuSimple, and Aurora, by relying heavily on cutting-edge AI tools and less on traditional “robotics mindset.” The latter requires vastly more data, solving an almost endless list of tasks and incalculable miles of on-road driving to training the software. In an interview with Forbes Urtasun explains: Waabi’s approach relies on a “new generation of AI algorithms that combine deep learning, probabilistic inference and complex optimization” that makes it possible to “generalize and learn from a small amount of data. You end up with an approach that requires much less to actually develop. It’s much less capital-intensive and doesn't require this driving and driving and driving on the road. You get much more automated, fast-paced solutions, and with the ability to come up with much more complex systems.” Former Uber CEO Travis Kalanick called Urtasun “one of the world’s leading researchers in the fields of machine perception and artificial intelligence,” when Uber hired her in 2017 as a chief scientist to lead a tech hub in Toronto, where she is also a professor of computer science at the University of Toronto. "Raquel is truly one-of-a-kind—a tenacious and inspiring leader who empowers those around her to excel,” said Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi.
Not so Fast(ly) ✋
On Tuesday, a huge global web outage swept across the internet taking out popular sites including Amazon, Twitch, and Reddit. Major news sites like CNN, The New York Times, The Guardian, and the Financial Times were also affected. The issues also affected UK government websites, so British citizens were unable to renew passports, apply for tax allowances, or obtain driving licenses during the outage. Early reports pointed the blame at Fastly, an American cloud computing services firm. Fastly’s status page said Tuesday morning that it was investigating a technical issue. About an hour later it said the issue has been resolved. Fastly operates what’s known as a content delivery network (CDN). CDNs are networks of servers and data centers distributed around the world that allow for the transfer of assets needed for loading internet content. Fastly’s tech is designed to counter common causes of online outages, such as distributed denial-of-service attacks that overwhelm a website with a sudden wave of traffic. Shares of Fastly were down in US premarket trading but rose as much as 6% as markets opened for trading Tuesday. On Wednesday, Fastly blamed the problem on a software bug that was triggered when a customer changed a setting. The incident highlighted how dependent the global internet is on a handful of behind-the-scenes companies such as Fastly that provide vital infrastructure- It also amplified concerns about how vulnerable these companies are to more serious disruption.
Is this 2021 biggest IPO? 🚘
On Thursday Didi Chuxing, China’s biggest ride-hailing firm, filed for its long-anticipated US stock market listing, setting the stage for what is expected to be the world’s biggest initial public offering this year. The company which is backed by Asia’s largest technology investment firms, SoftBank, Alibaba, and Tencent did not reveal the size of the offering. Didi was most recently valued at $62 billion following an August fundraising round. Bloomberg reported the company could have a $100 billion valuation at the time of its IPO. At that valuation, Didi's listing would be the biggest Chinese share offering in the United States since Alibaba raised $25 billion in 2014. In its filing on Thursday, Didi revealed slower revenue growth in 2020 due to the impact of the pandemic, which hammered ride-hailing companies including Uber and Lyft as lockdowns were enforced all over the globe. Didi’s US counterparts, Uber and Lyft, have both said they’ll be profitable on an adjusted basis by the end of this year, thanks to the recovery. Didi acquired Uber’s China business in 2016 in a complicated transaction that involved both companies taking shares in each other. Didi said it sold all of its shares in Uber in November and December of last year. Didi’s revenue of 141.7 billion yuan ($22.17 billion) in 2020 was down from 154.8 billion yuan a year earlier, while net loss was 10.6 billion yuan, compared with 9.7 billion yuan a year earlier. However, Didi has started 2021 strongly, as businesses reopened in China. Revenue more than doubled to 42.2 billion yuan for the three months ended March 31 from 20.5 billion yuan a year earlier. Founded in 2012, Didi said it has 493 million annual active riders, and 15 million annual active drivers.
Bezos to space 💫
On Monday morning, Amazon founder, Jeff Bezos announced he is going to be one of the passengers on his spaceflight company Blue Origin’s first-ever human space launch on July 20. He also revealed that his brother Mark will also be coming along for the ride. Bezos and his brother will be joined by one lucky winner of an online auction Blue Origin is currently hosting. The highest bid for that seat currently stands at $2.8 million. The July 20 Blue Origin launch of its suborbital, reusable New Shepard rocket will be the first time it has ever flown with people on board. It’s unusual for a company to make its first-ever human spaceflight a mission with a paying passenger, and now we know that it’s also going to be carrying one of the world’s richest people. By contrast, Virgin Galactic has flown to space multiple times with test pilots and astronauts before its forthcoming trip with founder Sir Richard Branson. Elon Musk has also never flown on a SpaceX launch, though he has suggested in the past that he will fly on one of his company’s vehicles. Blue Origin’s New Shepard has flown plenty of times without people. Except for the first flight where the reusable booster was lost, it has had complete success for each of the 15 missions, including the landing of the booster and recovery of the capsule. The New Shepard rocket doesn’t go all the way to orbit but instead flies to the edge of space, where passengers experience a few minutes of weightlessness and an unbeatable view of Earth through the capsules many windows, before returning to a parachute-assisted landing on the ground in Texas near Blue Origin’s launch site. If you are interested in the seat, the final phase of the auction is set for June 12 and will include live online bidding from remaining participants who bump their existing bid to match the high offer.
And 3D printed spaceships 🚀
In other space news, the 3D-printed rocket startup Relativity Space announced on Tuesday it raised a $650 million Series E, bringing its total raised to over $1.2 billion. Relativity’s post-money valuation now stands at $4.2 billion. The latest round was led by Fidelity Management & Research Company, with participation from new investors BlackRock, Centricus, Coatue, and Soroban Capital, and participation from existing investors Baillie Gifford, K5 Global, Tiger Global, Tribe Capital, XN, Brad Buss, Mark Cuban, Jared Leto, and Spencer Rascoff. The funds from the Series E will go toward accelerating the production of Terran R, the company’s heavy-lift, fully reusable two-stage rocket. Terran R joins Terran 1, Relativity’s debut rocket, which will conduct its first orbital flight at the end of 2021.
The first country to adopt Bitcoin as legal tender 🤑
On Wednesday, El Salvador became the first country to adopt bitcoin as legal tender. Lawmakers in El Salvador’s Congress voted by a supermajority (receiving 62 out of 84 of the legislature’s vote) in favor of the Bitcoin Law. The new law reads: “The purpose of this law is to regulate bitcoin as unrestricted legal tender with liberating power, unlimited in any transaction, and to any title that public or private natural or legal persons require carrying out.” Prices can now be shown in bitcoin, tax contributions can be paid with the digital currency, and exchanges in bitcoin will not be subject to capital gains tax. Bitcoin is known for big price swings that have prompted critics to suggest it is not suitable to be an effective currency. It’s still unclear how El Salvador will ultimately roll out bitcoin as legal tender. According to the proposed law the exchange rate with the US dollar “will be freely established by the market.” El Salvador’s current official currency is the US dollar.
WallStreetBets new favorite targets 📌
WallStreetBets got a new favorite target this week as passionate day traders glued to their Reddit message boards and pushed the shares of Clover Health up triple digits at one point on Tuesday. The Medicare insurance start-up that went public via Chamath Palihapitiya’s SPAC jumped more than 100%. By midday trading, Clover had already traded over 400 million shares, 18 times more than its 30-day average volume of 22 million shares. Chatter about Clover grew on Reddit’s WallStreetBets forum, which now has more than 10 million participants and became the most mentioned name in the infamous chatroom. During the past weeks, Reddit traders have been all over AMC Entertainment as traders piled into shares and call options (see definition below) of the movie theater chain and drove the stock up more than 110% this month. A short squeeze (see definition below) could also be at play for Clover Health, which has 43.5% of its float shares sold short. That compares with about 18% short interest in AMC. When a heavily shorted stock suddenly jumps high, short sellers are forced to buy back shares and close their short position to cut losses. Retail traders on Reddit are encouraging each other to take advantage of the big short interest in Clover and aim to squeeze out short sellers. Earlier this year, Clover shares fell after short seller Hindenburg published a report that called the company a “broken business.” Clover said in February that it received a notice of investigation from the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and that it intends to cooperate. Short sellers have been adding to their bearish positions (the belief that the stock will decline) as the stock recovered from the initial pullback following the SEC investigation news. Over the last 30 days, shares shorted have increased by about 25%. Let’s try to see how the call options that the Reddit traders buy compare to the short-selling of investors who believe stocks will decline and how they ultimately lead to a short squeeze:
Definitions
Call options are financial contracts that give the option buyer the right, but not the obligation, to buy a stock, bond, commodity, or other asset or instrument at a specified price within a specific time period. The stock, bond, or commodity is called the underlying asset. A call buyer profits when the underlying asset increases in price.
Short selling is an investment or trading strategy that speculates on the decline in a stock or other security's price. It is an advanced strategy that should only be undertaken by experienced traders and investors. In short selling, a position is opened by borrowing shares of a stock or other asset that the investor believes will decrease in value. The investor then sells these borrowed shares to buyers willing to pay the market price. Before the borrowed shares must be returned, the trader is betting that the price will continue to decline and they can purchase them at a lower cost. The risk of loss on a short sale is theoretically unlimited since the price of any asset can climb to infinity.
Short squeeze is an unusual condition that triggers rapidly rising prices in a stock or other tradeable security. For a short squeeze to occur the security must have an unusual degree of short sellers holding positions in it. The short squeeze begins when the price jumps higher unexpectedly. The condition plays out as a significant measure of the short sellers coincidentally decide to cut losses and exit their positions.
Inflation and the consumer price index 💹
US consumer prices for May accelerated at their fastest pace since 2008 as inflation pressures continued to build in the country’s economy, the Labor Department reported on Thursday. The consumer price index (CPI), which represents a basket of goods including food, energy, groceries, housing costs, rose 5% from a year ago. Economists had been expecting a gain of 4.7%. The reading represented the biggest CPI gain since the 5.3% increase in August 2008, just before the financial crisis that sent the US spiraling into the worst recession it had seen since the Great Depression. While the recent surge in prices can partly be attributed to the low levels of inflation at the start of the pandemic, it has also been driven by the increasing price of goods and demand for rental cars, hotels, and flights as the US economy has reopened. The Federal Reserve policymakers have been more tolerant of inflation partly because consumer prices were subdued for so long despite the loose monetary policy. The Fed has repeatedly said the recent inflation rise was likely to be transitory, not sustained. Consequently, market participants generally do not expect to see the Fed react to the latest numbers when the policymaking committee meets next week. In general, investors remain heavily focused on inflation, which hasn’t been a major threat to the US economy since the early 1980s.
This week in the stock market 🎢
On Monday the Dow fell 0.36%, for its worst daily performance since May 19. The S&P 500 also dipped 0.08%, while Nasdaq edged 0.5% higher, boosted by shares of Biogen. The biopharmaceutical stock surged 38% after the FDA approved its groundbreaking Alzheimer’s drug. Meme stocks also continued their rally on Monday. Shares of AMC Entertainment jumped 14.8%, BlackBerry and GameStop shares also increased double-digits. The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) said on Monday that it is watching the ongoing volatility in the market and vowed to protect retail investors. On Thursday the S&P 500 and the blue-chip Dow both closed near the flatline. The broad equity benchmark was just 0.3% below its record high of 4,238.04 reached on May 7. On Wednesday the US markets continued to trade within a tight range, with all three major indexes ending the day within 0.5% of the previous day’s closing levels. On Thursday the S&P 500 hit a new high during regular trading, despite hotter-than-expected inflation data (see above). The Dow rose 0.06% to 34,466.24. The S&P 500 ended the day up 0.47% at 4,239.18, and Nasdaq ended the day up 0.78% at 14,020.33. The Labor Department reported consumer price index data on Thursday, showing inflation is rising at its fastest pace since 2008 as the economy rebounds from the pandemic-related recession. But markets shrugged off the news.
Plus ➕
Fined: France’s competition authority fined Google 220 million euros ($268 million) on Monday for abusing its market power in the online advertising industry
Charge up: Northvolt, the Swedish battery maker, raised $2.75 billion from a host of big names including Goldman Sachs to help fuel its global expansion and increase production
Smartwatch: Facebook plans its first smartwatch for next summer with two cameras and a heart rate monitor
SPAC: Autonomous vehicle startup Aurora is close to finalizing a deal to merge with Reinvent Technology Partners Y, the newest SPAC launched by LinkedIn co-founder and investor Reid Hoffman
Hopin: Speaking of LinkedIn, the company bets big that online events are here to stay, investing in $5 billion-plus virtual platform company Hopin
Smoooth: The Swedish fintech giant, Klarna raises $639M led by SoftBank's Vision Fund II at a $45.6B post-money valuation, up 47.3% from its $31B valuation in early March when it raised $1B
Upgrade: Tesla began deliveries of its new Model S Plaid, a high-performance version of the company’s flagship electric sedan, on Thursday with a livestream event.
Netflix and buy: Netflix launches an online store with Shopify, featuring merch tied to its shows.
Woman of the week
Revathi Advaithi
Revathi Advaithi is the chief executive of Flex.
Advaithi graduated with a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from the Birla Institute of Technology and Science and earned an MBA from the Thunderbird School of Global Management. Advaithi began her career as a shop floor supervisor at Eaton in Shawnee, Oklahoma. In 2002 she joined Honeywell, where she spent six years in functions spanning manufacturing and supply chain. In 2008, Advaithi returned to Eaton and helped to run various parts of the electrical business for 10 years before becoming President and COO. At Eaton, she managed the company’s largest business, consistently delivering high margins, while reducing earnings volatility. In 2018, she secured more than $13 billion in sales.
“It is important for us to embrace people from all perspectives and places and work together to achieve success”
In February 2019, Advaithi joined Flex as its chief executive. Along with Flex’s workforce spanning 30 countries, Advaithi focus is on driving technology innovation, supply chain, and responsible, sustainable manufacturing solutions across various industries and end markets. Under Advaithi, Flex has shifted its focus to end-to-end customer value chain ownership, augmenting its contract manufacturing business. She cites her leadership style as “being empathetic but making decisions quickly” and spends 60% of her time traveling to meetings with customers and employees. In January 2020, Advaithi learned Flex's factories faced shortages of 8,000 individual items due to the coronavirus pandemic's impact on global demand. She has said the pandemic is “probably the most difficult time” she has faced in her career. Under her direction, Flex prepared its 50,000 Chinese workers to safely return to work in early February, and by early May, Flex had returned hundreds of remote workers to work and accelerated medical gear production to fight the pandemic. Advaithi currently serves as an independent director for the Board of Directors of Uber and Catalyst. She is also a member of the MIT Presidential CEO Advisory Board.
Advaithi has been named to Fortune’s Most Powerful Women list in 2019 and 2020 (ranking at No. 33). Business Today also recognized Advaithi as one of the Most Powerful Women in India in 2020, and in 2021, Gadgets Now listed Advaithi as one of the most important Indian-origin tech executives in the world. Under Revathi, Flex was named one of the World's Most Admired Companies by Fortune.
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I’m Marianne, an early-stage VC based in Stockholm. You can reach me by replying to this email, or find me on Twitter or LinkedIn.