Mia joined NEA in 2023 as an investor on the Technology team. Prior to joining NEA, she worked as a Private Equity Associate at Permira. She previously spent time at McKinsey as a Business Analyst in Digital Practice and at Microsoft as a Software Program Manager. Mia graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with two Bachelor of Science degrees in Economics and Mechanical Engineering and a Master of Science degree in Robotics Engineering.
What’s one word you want founders to use when describing their partnership with you?
Empowering. At NEA, I’ve seen us act as empowering partners to many founders, including those whose companies we did not invest in. The most rewarding part of our job is gaining the privilege to act as trusted advisors to innovative teams. Whether or not we end up funding them, our goal is to surround their teams with NEA’s ecosystem and create long-lasting impact. I know we’ve succeeded when a founder chooses NEA for its resources and expertise, even if it sometimes means rejecting a highly competitive term sheet for the opportunity to work with us.
What’s an important quality you look for in a founder?
A great leader is inspirational and motivational but is also driven to execute. Ideas are of course important, and I love seeing a founder passionate about their vision, but what really sets them apart is their ability to bring said vision to life. Execution can take the form of developing an excellent product strategy, scaling the GTM function, efficiently acquiring customers, attracting and hiring talent, etc. I look up to strong executors in the public markets and identify similar patterns in private market founders—and those are the founders I consider myself lucky to partner with.
In what ways does NEA’s ethos align with your personal ethos?
NEA’s founding partners anchored our firm around “shared goals, shared values, and shared rewards.” Our business is shaped—and constantly reshaped—by public market volatility, rapid pace of innovation, and evolving geopolitical trends. To achieve long-term success, we have to collectively align our goals by working as a team—within NEA and with our Limited Partners and the entrepreneurs we work with. This ethos of sharing really resonates with my values and strengthens the social fabric of society, allowing us as individuals, and as NEA, to build a stronger entrepreneur-investor ecosystem.
If you hadn’t found your way into venture capital, what would you be doing?
I would be a winemaker. Despite being raised in Bordeaux, I have limited knowledge of wine, yet I am captivated by the intellectual challenge winemaking presents. Winemakers dedicate years to cultivating and aging their wine. The final product is a testament not only to their passion for the craft but also to years of meticulous analysis of consumer preferences, harvest times, weather conditions, etc. In many ways, passionate and long-term-oriented winemakers mirror accomplished investors; their success lies in the long-term vision and commitment to nurture something of lasting value. Both invest time, effort, and passion into creating legacies, which takes the shape of generational companies or refined wines.
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“The most rewarding aspect of our work is having the privilege to serve as trusted advisors to industry-defining teams and generational companies, regardless of whether we get the opportunity to fund them.”
