Alejandra is an Associate at Bee Partners. Her infinite curiosity and strategic thinking brought her to Asset Management. Her quest for large-scale impact and a greater connection with the people she supports attracted her to Venture Capital.
Alejandra was born and raised in Chile. Her family spent some time here in the US before going back, where she reconnected with her roots.
In this episode, Alejandra shares her origin story, her career path from finance to venture capital, and why she pursued an MBA even with an already successful career.
We also hear about Alejandra’s passion as an endurance athlete and how the things she has learned through her training experiences align with what she does in her current role at Bee Partners.
Episode Quotes:
On getting an MBA
It was something that I had always been thinking in the back end. And when I started having these questions of what’s next and I just really hated visualizing and seeing what was coming next. It was all great, but I didn’t want to have that level of certainty and have everything so figured out, being 20-something. And so, that’s when I realized I want to change and I want something drastically different, not just a pivot or a tack that’s similar to what I’m already doing.
On taking her MBA during the pandemic
I saw coming to business school during the pandemic as a good opportunity in the sense that a lot of things were going to change. And being a student, I felt, was the best way to experience that change and really learn about things that were going to be dramatically different, if we were able to get out of it or when we got out of it. And so, I saw it as a great opportunity to be a student rather than to be working and trying to do everything business as usual when the world was not business as usual.
Parallels between her experiences as an endurance athlete and her current role
The first thing is it’s a marathon, not a sprint. And that means that you probably want things to happen now, but it’s really important to just focus on what you have in front of you, have a vision of what you want the future to look like, what you want success to look like, but really hold it there, because you can’t do both at the beginning. You have to focus on the present moment. And as you make progress, you start incorporating that future vision into whatever it is you’re doing. But in the beginning, it’s just about where am I. And what does the next short iteration cycle look like?
Alejandra’s word of wisdom to the Haas community
I feel like every important decision that I’ve had to make, although I’ve done a lot of rational thinking, in the end, it comes down to intuition. And I think that’s my inspiration here.
When you have to decide between different paths, rationality doesn’t really help. Being rational helps you look at pros and cons, but you can very quickly and easily trick yourself into thinking this option is right, and then two seconds later saying, “No, no, no, but this one is better because of another reason.”
And so, when you’re thinking about these broader scale paths or large decisions, it’s really about your gut, honestly. And then rationalization is great for execution. It’s great for, “I decided my path. And now, let me break this down, figure out where I want to go from here.” But listen to what you feel. I think connecting with your inner self and having that awareness — internal and external awareness — can go a really, really long way.
Show Links:
Transcript:
(Transcripts may contain a few typographical errors due to audio quality during the podcast recording.)
[00:00] Chris: Welcome to the OneHaas Podcast. I’m Chris Kim. Today, we have Ale Vergara, Berkeley Haas MBA 2022 and associate at Bee Partners. Ale takes her quest for large-scale impact and connecting with people into venture capital at Bee Partners, investing in people, building disruptive technologies. Ale, welcome, and great to have you on the show.
[00:21] Alejandra: It’s great to be with you today.
[00:23] Chris: You have, really, a global background in academics. And then, also, you had a career before you came to Haas and Berkeley. Could you share a bit about your origin story? And what’s the story behind your story? Just so many awesome things, would love to learn more about that.
[00:39] Alejandra: Yeah. I was born and raised in Chile, though I lived in the U.S. for a brief period, and I’ll come back to this. I was fortunate enough to have parents that encouraged me to explore the real, non-existing limits of my curiosity and who supported me through any kind of new experience that I wanted to have or any new skill that I wanted to pick, while, at the same time, having three younger brothers who forced me to push myself beyond my comfort zone, especially in sports. And that’s definitely shaped the person who I am today.
Fast forwarding quite a little bit, I was living in the U.S. with my family from when I was 10 until I was 16. And I was starting my sophomore year of high school and realized I was really approaching a turning point, in the sense that, I felt like I either went back home when I was 16 and reconnected with my roots, my culture, my family, and friends, or I finished high school, applied to college here in the U.S., and after 12 years it probably would’ve been really hard to go back.
So, I talked to my parents. I said, “Parents, I need to go back.” And so, I did. And actually, my whole family ended up moving back. So, I’m really grateful that I wasn’t at it alone. I finished high school and undergrad in Chile. And the thing is, what’s hard, I guess, about choosing your degree in Chile is that you have to choose a career path when you’re 18. And to be honest, at that point, I was between engineering, business, but also, psychology, design. And as a true generalist, I ended up choosing finance and economics.
When I looked for my first job, it was the same thing, the same type of problem. And I chose the trading desk at J.P. Morgan because, twofold, I wanted to be part of a global organization, just to go back to this idea of living abroad when I was younger, coming back to Chile. My family is also part Chilean, but largely British as well. So, there’s a lot of that common thread. And I also wanted to be part of a fast-moving sector, and there’s really nothing like sales and trading derivatives in emerging markets to keep you on the edge of your seat. I don’t even have to go into detail, but you can probably imagine what that looks like.
The problem, though, is J.P. Morgan is a massive organization. It’s super structured and your job starts somewhere and ends somewhere. And the only way to grow, or not the only way, but it’s a really vertical growth path. And I just felt that I wasn’t ready for something like that. So, I moved to an emerging asset manager, still keeping that finance track because I just think it’s fascinating. I love markets and just how dynamic they truly are. And the partners at Falcom were former colleagues of my manager at J.P. Morgan. So, that’s why I got connected.
And what I liked is that, when they hired me, they told me, “Look, we like you as a person. We’ll figure out the role later.” And this uncertainty and flexibility really appealed to me. And I think that’s something that’s very common throughout my life. At Falcom, I grew from being a client PM — so, more of a sales role — to being a research analyst and eventually running two funds as a portfolio manager. And I’d say that my favorite experience there was building a fund from scratch. So, finding a problem with the existing products that we had, understanding the need for something different, designing and developing a new strategy, and then all the way to, obviously, executing, fundraising, and finally operating the fund.
The problem is I realized I liked that whole process way more than actually operating. And once it was up and running, the excitement went down. It was a great and very intellectually stimulating job, but I started thinking, what’s the true impact that I’m having here? It feels like, in any career, at the beginning, you just want to be an absorbing sponge and just learn a ton. But then, at some point, you want to turn around and be like, “I’ve learned a bunch. Now, what am I giving back?”
And the second thing that I started noticing was a developing trend of just the best graduates from top schools in Chile not going directly into consulting and investment banking, but going into tech and startups. And I was missing out. I just felt like I was on my lane and I couldn’t reach out to the other ones. So, after a lot of back-and-forth with my manager, who I love dearly and still talk to this day, I quit. And I was like, so, what’s my next step? And I slammed my GMAT studies and applications to three months and got into Haas round two.
[05:31] Chris: Oh, my gosh. That’s an amazing story, Ale. For a lot of us who go through this process, and it was my personal experience as well, one of the things that I often have gotten the question about is, hey, especially if your career was going in a good direction before the MBA program, why even invest the time, money, and effort to go through that?
[05:52] Alejandra: I think one thing I have to say is I have to thank my dad because he really planted the seed of studying and living abroad in me from when I was quite young. So, that was always in the back of my mind. It was somewhere in my future plan. It’s not like it was something that I just… I made it sound like I just came up with it. It was something that I had always been thinking in the back end. And when I started having these questions of what’s next and I just really hated seeing, really visualizing and seeing what was coming next. And it was all great, but I didn’t want to have that level of certainty and have everything so figured out, being 20 something.
And so, I think that’s when I realized I want to change and I want something drastically different, not just a pivot or a tack that’s similar to what I’m already doing. And so, I thought, if I want to get exposure to technology and the mix between cultural changes, which is what I talked about in terms of this trend that I was seeing with top students migrating from the traditional career paths to different things, as well as the tech that was enabling that change, I was like, it’s the Bay Area, it’s San Francisco. I already lived out on the East Coast. Great. Loved it. But also, I want to see something a little bit different. And as an international, it’s just harder. It’s harder to say, “I’m just going to apply, cold email folks, and apply to jobs cold.” And no one really knows what the hell, like, what is that university that you went to? What’s that place that you worked at?
Then, we can have a conversation about how great the MBA truly is. But I saw it at the beginning as a stamp of approval, more of a signaling type of thing rather than anything else. And I also thought this is a great time for me to really take a step back and think, I know it’s the entrepreneurial ecosystem, but where exactly do I fit within it?
Now, one more thing that I’ll say is, and this is a message to international students is, folks tell you, don’t do the three-way pivot. Don’t try to move countries, change industries, and change roles. Choose two, and then just forget about the third. And I think if you’re very determined and if you know what you want, yes, it is harder, but it can definitely be done. I’ve seen lots of people be on my own experience who have been able to do it.
[08:22] Chris: That’s awesome. When I’ve talked to international students at Haas, one of the things is really this cost-benefit analysis. Can you share a bit about, maybe, just some of the logistics of getting to campus —
[08:34] Alejandra: Oh, my God.
[08:35] Chris: — especially, in your case, timed it with a pandemic. So, it was probably the most challenging time and probably was an amazing or a really challenging experience at that.
[08:44] Alejandra: I’m getting traumatic flashbacks from the whole visa, everything closing down. But yeah, I think you make a good point there. And as an international, you don’t just think about coming to business school as, what’s the best? What’s the ranking? And these are my five options. I think it’s a lot more holistic, because when you’re moving abroad, it’s a big change. And so, you’re thinking about a ton of different things. And, in my case, I know that I want to end up in the Bay Area. What’s the best way to get there? And despite the fact that I did apply to some schools out on the East Coast and stuff, I knew that, to me, that was my backup plan. I wanted it to be West Coast, for sure. And that was my first, second, and third choice.
Also, I went to a private Catholic school. I went to the more conservative undergrad. And so, I just wanted a different experience. I wanted to be surrounded by people that were different and that thought different. And so, that ruled out a bunch of really good schools for me that I just didn’t apply to because it wasn’t necessarily what I was looking for in a more holistic sense.
And the last thing, and this is very personal to me, I’m a huge, huge outdoors and endurance athlete. So, the West Coast is just, step change, orders of magnitude better for all that stuff than the East Coast. So, that was also a big part of it, for sure.
[10:15] Chris: You’re one of the folks who came during the pandemic. And that’s very unique. Can you talk a little bit about that?
[10:23] Alejandra: So, before even coming to business school, I remember I was debating. First of all, as an international, you have the option to either defer and join, instead of the class of 2022, it would’ve been the class of 2023. So, I thought about that for a little bit. But honestly, I had already made up my mind. I really had my next step laid out in front of me, and I really wanted to do it. And then, I also saw coming to business school during the pandemic as a good opportunity, in the sense that a lot of things were going to change. That’s the way I saw it. And being a student, I felt, was the best way to experience that change and really learn about things that were going to be dramatically different, if we were able to get out of it or when we got out of it. And so, I saw it as a great opportunity to be a student rather than to be working and trying to do everything business as usual when the world was not business as usual.
And then, the second thing is, at some point, the U.S. embassy was closed. And so, we couldn’t even get our visas. And I was just like, “Wow.” I was like, well, I guess if I can’t be there for the first semester, I’ll just come in December. I can’t remember. We all got an email on a Monday and we scheduled, because there were eight of us Chileans in the class. And we all had our visa appointments the next day, got our visa stamps on our passports in four days. And then, I was like, “Crap, I have to sell everything now I’m actually moving.”
I got to Haas, I think, second or third week of class. We were about to go into midterms. And it was that weekend, the orange day, that was my, like, welcome to the Bay Area, this is where you’re going to be living in the next two years. So, I definitely had some second thoughts. We were locked inside, and it wasn’t because of COVID, it was because of forest fires and air quality. So, it wasn’t the best start, but I guess, after that, everything was uphill. So, that was the beginning.
I will say I think our class did a really good job in terms of making the most of this first year that was fully remote, rather than… business school is known for just a lot of breath in terms of the amount of people that you’re interacting with, the amount of things that you get involved in. And it’s not really about depth. And I think we had the unique opportunity of getting both experiences where the first year was a lot more about depth because you were hanging out with smaller crews. You didn’t necessarily have to be in Berkeley. So, we rented a house for a week in Bend, Oregon with a group of 10 people. And it was just those sorts of inviting two people over for dinner, just having a really great conversation. That was my first year experience. And then my second year was, what you’re used to with the whole business school experience.
So, obviously, I’m painting the rosy picture here, but I feel very fortunate in terms of, given the context and what other folks were going through, my class and I were just super lucky to have the experience that we had. And in terms of getting involved, yes, it was definitely harder because it’s not like you could physically walk over and meet people or get involved in things or walk over to the school of engineering and the school of design.
So, personally, the first thing that I did was apply to a bunch of fellowships that were looking for venture fellows or anything like that which would give me a platform to get involved in the entrepreneurial ecosystem outside of Haas. And then, I also took electives outside of the business school, which I encourage everyone to do, because Haas is one great business school, but we’re also part of a much larger, broader, incredible public university. And so, the fact that we can do that is amazing. And you only get the chance to do that during two years of your life, unless you’re auditing classes. But that’s a separate topic.
So, that was my way of getting involved in extracurriculars, given that you had to plan it, you had to be a little bit more structured about how you got involved, because there weren’t happy hours or social events happening at all. Everything had to be structured and planned. So, it was a little harder at the beginning, for sure.
[14:51] Chris: You talked about pivoting into venture capital, and you actually did it. You eventually landed at Bee Partners. But can you talk a little bit about that journey, specifically? It’s a little bit less structured, and the post-MBA experience is not as clear as, maybe, going to consulting or a major tech company or even finance.
[15:13] Alejandra: There’s two ways of thinking about this in terms of your strategy. One is to double down on your strengths, and the second one is to really work on your weaknesses in terms of what you need or what’s expected of you in a different role. And I think I played it twofold in the sense that the activities that I got involved with in and just the type of work that I did externally was more doubling down on my strengths, while internally, and in a safe space where I could just be vulnerable, it was really doubling down on my weaknesses. And that was more, on the finance, on the business side of things, obviously, that’s the side that I do understand and that I have the expertise in. But in terms of being an early-stage founder and just understanding what that journey looks like, I didn’t necessarily have that experience. It had been a bunch of small side hustles and running more CPG-type businesses. But I had never started a tech company. And so, I did both. So, again, externally painting the picture of me as this person who knew what they were doing, but really internally being like, oh, crap, I have to work on all these different skills and just get this experience that I don’t have.
And that was a mix of taking a lot of applied learning classes, a lot of entrepreneurship learn-the-lean-startup methodology, start a bunch of companies, pitch to investors, do that across schools, too, because it’s great to have a bunch of MBAs on your team, but then who’s going to build stuff? So, it was teaming up with engineers and undergrads, other master’s degree students. And so, that was great. In terms of, yes, totally right that consulting, it’s a pretty structured path, you know what you’re doing, and there’s timelines, same thing with big tech. VCs are always a never hiring. So, what I mean by that is they always need help. They always need support, just given the structure of most funds where it’s almost like an inverted triangle, where, normally, a big corporation, you have one person at the head and then it grows down into a pyramid. This is flipped, where you have a bunch of partners at the top. And then you don’t really have much support underneath that.
And so, these funds are always looking for interns, for fellows, whatnot, but not necessarily someone to stay on board full time. It’s how their business model is structured. And we can talk about that another time. But given that, there’s not a lot of support. Obviously, there’s no formal process in most of them, unless it’s a really big fund or a multi-stage fund. And so, it’s a lot more networking and you figuring out how you can be valuable from the beginning.
And so, I’m now the type of person to just schedule a coffee chat and talk about whatever. It’s like I need to know what I’m going to offer and have my plan and my bullets. So, that’s why I think getting involved in things like SkyDeck, getting involved in Courtyard Ventures, and just being plugged into the ecosystem and what was happening, who in my class was starting companies, and really, not just the what, but the so what? So, when I say that, it’s not just who’s starting a company, but what are the general trends? What are folks interested in? There’s a lot of push in digital health and stuff like that, most likely because of COVID. Also, lots of folks are looking at climate sustainability and just mapping that out. And then you can take it to a higher and higher level. Again, having an ear on the ground was just my excuse to reach out to folks and have these coffee chats that suck at the beginning, but then you just get better. And it snowballs from there.
[19:05] Chris: And running a startup is a lot like being an endurance athlete. And I know that’s a super big passion for you. Can you talk a little bit about that? I know you’re scheduled to run a huge triathlon in a couple of days. So, congrats to you on that. But what has that experience like in the interactions that you’ve had with, maybe, founders or folks in the ecosystem really being in a true pre-seed fund? And how does that translate to your experience in endurance athletics and the experience that you’ve had there?
[19:34] Alejandra: Oh, man, there’s so many parallels. And I’m actually trying. I should start writing these down because there’s so many different things that I’ve learned through my experience training that align a lot to the day-to-day stuff that I do with founders, because at Bee, we really focus on that partnership modeling. And so, that means meeting with founders sometimes on a weekly basis or more if they need it, and then, also, pushing back and meeting with them once a month or once a quarter, if it makes sense, and just really supporting them any way that we can.
And so, I’ve seen a lot of parallels there. The first thing is it’s a marathon, not a sprint. And that means that you probably want things to happen now, but it’s really important to just focus on what you have in front of you, have a vision of what you want the future to look like, what you want success to look like, but really hold it there, because you can’t do both at the beginning. You have to focus on the present moment. And as you make progress, you start incorporating that future vision to whatever it is you’re doing. But at the beginning it’s just about, where am I? And what does the next short iteration cycle look like?
So, for me, when I’m training, I have micro cycles and macro cycles. And the micro cycles are just my four-week sprint and what that looks like within a broader cycle that, depending on what it is I’m working on, is it volume? Is it reps and just speed? Is it getting stronger, getting faster? It really depends on where you’re at. At the beginning, you always screw up. Always. I got really badly injured. And it was because I wasn’t paying attention to these cycles and the cadence of just how training is meant to go. I thought that I could just do everything and take on all the hard things at the beginning and that things were going to work out. And no, I also needed time to not take a break, but just like, you need to recover. And that has to be putting your cycle of work as well.
And the one thing that I think really resonates when I think about startups and just metrics and making sure that you’re super data-driven is that, I guess, the more or the younger generations of athletes aren’t just necessarily training more, they’re training smarter. And so, that means not necessarily more hours or more volume, but really hitting certain metrics, whether it’s, again, pace, watts. And I think there’s ways of getting the same results, but just being a lot smarter about it. And the way to do that is tracking yourself and looking at your data and making sure that things are going the way they’re meant to be going. And if they’re not, then you need to make a change, whether it’s to that specific routine, to that specific plan. Maybe, it’s your trainer. Maybe, it’s your diet. I don’t know. But it’s just being really in tune with what’s happening and taking action and deciding, being decisive, even though you don’t have the full answer of what’s happening. But clearly, changes need to be made. And if things are going well, then great.
So, I think that’s part of it. And then the last thing I’ll say, and this is related to how I’m feeling now, because I started working three months ago and at the beginning it was just like, oh, my God, this is so much. And I feel slow and everything is so manual. And I’m like, I don’t have my structure and my automation in place. And it reminds me that progress is not linear. Normally, you’re doing great, you’re progressing, and then you hit a plateau.
And this is very, very real as an athlete. Feel it. It’s like you’re making progress week over week. You’re like, “Oh, my God, I’m getting better.” And then, all of a sudden, you’re just stuck and you just don’t get better for a while until something unlocks and then, boom, you get pushed to the next phase. And then it happens again. And it’s the same thing here. Right now, again, I feel that I’m slow and that I’m not necessarily performing as maybe the memory that I have of myself in my last job. Obviously, after four years, things are different. But I just remind myself, just be patient. If it hurts, it’s because you’re making progress.
[24:13] Chris: Ale, that’s awesome. Along with just that endurance aspect of your life, we were talking about before the podcast another big thing for you is just purpose and having a bigger purpose beyond, even just the immediate. And you shared in the pre-recording that investing globally and, particularly, giving back to LatAm as a region is something that’s part of your purpose. Could you talk a little bit about that? Explain, maybe, why you see that and why giving back to the region is such a big thing for you, and how you’re even trying now to weave that into part of your purpose or your bigger mission, particularly, in VC, but even beyond that as well.
[24:59] Alejandra: 100%. And I think it’s when we go back to the reason why I came to business school, it was because of that same passion or wanting to find purpose in what I was doing. Again, at the beginning, it’s all about learning and just absorbing. But then, I feel like, in life, you turn around and you’re like, “So, what have I done?” And that’s how I feel right now. It’s like I came over here, I’ve had this incredible experience. I’m learning and I’m absorbing, and I have incredible mentors at Bee and beyond. A special shout out to Kira here, who’s also a Haas MBA and a partner at Bee. But then, I can already feel that it’s going to get to a point where I’m like, again, what’s the impact that I’m having? And how am I giving back?
And one thing to me that’s really important that I’ve noticed is very different is just where the startup ecosystem is in LatAm versus… And not even just the U.S. It’s really more versus Silicon Valley, because that’s the space that I see. And so, to me, it’s about giving back. And giving back, the best way to do it is putting your money where your mouth is. And to me, it’s investing in LatAm and really having that same partnership model that Bee has here, replicating it there, because I feel like that’s a lot of what founders need and what they’re not really getting, necessarily. And so, one of the things that I hope to develop as I progress in my career within Bee is develop our investment thesis in Latin America. And it’s like, given where Bee has historically invested, how does that translate over to Latin America? And I like to call it Latin America because to me it’s the region as a whole. Chile, obviously, there’s a special place for it in my heart. And not being biased or anything, but I think it’s the best country in the world. But it’s the region as a whole. And this new breed of founders that I’m seeing thinks about the region as a whole as well.
And so, I’m trying to figure out now, again, given where Bee has invested before, where does it make sense to invest in LatAm? We talk a lot about this thing called the frontier curve of innovation. And so, where is that curve in LatAm compared to where it is here? And then, at the same time, there’s fundamental differences between the two places. And so, it’s not going to look exactly the same. You can’t just copy, paste, right?
[27:51] Chris: Mm-hmm.
[27:52] Alejandra: And also, going back to this thing that I mentioned earlier, again, progress is not linear. So, it’s not because something happened in the U.S. 20 years ago, it’s going to take 20 years to happen in Latin America, because we’re moving as a global economy. So, I think it’s not directly translatable, and that’s what I’m trying to figure out. But it’s an amazing journey ahead, and I’m really excited to get to that point where I can put investment dollars and invest it in the region and see what happens.
[28:27] Chris: Yeah, Ale. I’m super inspired by your story. We’re coming to the close of your podcast, but we have a tradition here at Haas to, maybe, share some words of wisdom to the Haas community and folks who might be inspired by your story and your background. Would you mind just sharing some words of wisdom, either related to your work or otherwise that you’d love to just share with our community? And any calls to actions or anything that you might want to share with the broader Haas ecosystem?
[29:03] Alejandra: Give me a second here, just to think about this one. So, I think there’s been a constant in my life. And I’ve thought about this a lot. And I’m someone who, again, likes to have control. It’s weird, because, on one side, I like to have control of the situation and I have all my bullets and my pros and cons. But then, at the same time, I hate control, and I want things to be dynamic, and I want things to change. And I like uncertainty. I really, really enjoy it and I feel comfortable in it.
So, it’s this interesting thing where I feel like every important decision that I’ve had to make, although I’ve done a lot of rational thinking, in the end, it comes down to intuition. And I think that’s my inspiration here. When you have to decide between different paths, rationality doesn’t really help. Being rational helps you look at pros and cons, but you can very quickly and easily trick yourself into thinking, this option is right, and then two seconds later saying, “No, no, no, but this one is better because of another reason.”
And so, when you’re thinking about these broader scale paths or large decisions, it’s really about your gut, honestly. And then rationalization is great for execution. It’s great for, “I decided my path. And now, let me break this down, figure out where I want to go from here.” But listen to what you feel. I think connecting with your inner self and having that awareness — internal and external awareness — can go a really, really long way.
[31:11] Chris: Ale, I’ve been super inspired by our conversation today and super inspired to have you here as our guest on the podcast. I want to say thank you, again, so much for joining us and being our guest on the show today. Wish you all the best in Bee Partners, all the best in the future. And, of course, we have to end it with a “go bears.”
[31:32] Alejandra: Go bears. Thanks so much, Chris. Great to talk to you, too. And I look forward to listening to so many more podcasts to come.
[31:43] Chris: Awesome.