Canary Media’s Charging Up column chronicles gender diversity and notable career moves in the climatetech sector. Got a person or event you’d like to see us cover or a hot job tip? Let us know!
Victoria Beasley: A nature-loving venture capitalist
Victoria Beasley is a partner at Gigascale Capital. This interview has been edited and condensed for brevity.
How did you end up on this career path?
I grew up in a small town in North Carolina, playing in the woods every day and doing all sorts of fun nature things, which sparked my interest in science. I thought I wanted to pursue medicine, and I was a biology major in college. I went to work at an HIV clinic in Ethiopia, where I was doing financial reporting and found that I was very passionate about numbers and math, but I still wanted to do impactful work. Back then, there weren’t a lot of opportunities that married finance and environmental impact. Despite early doubts about reconciling those interests, I embarked on a career in investment banking to learn about building businesses and financial models.
On the side, I would take vacation time to secretly attend early versions of sustainability conferences in San Francisco. I was inspired by entrepreneurs who believed in building significant businesses while addressing environmental concerns. This led me to join a solar company as head of finance.
I went back to school to get an MBA at Stanford and then joined Prelude Ventures, an early finance-oriented climate fund. Now, I am very excited to be building a new climate fund from the ground up with Gigascale Capital alongside my co-founders. We are working on investing in early-stage climate companies that are using mostly hard tech to take on the biggest decarbonization opportunities.
What’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever received?
Follow the people. By that, I mean prioritize the colleagues and leaders you’ll work closely with. For instance, in my early 20s, I was considering three job opportunities — one with intellectual and technological appeal, another targeting a vast market, and a third with both interesting technology and led by an exceptional leadership team — and I was struggling with the decision. I spoke with a venture investor who advised me unequivocally to pick the people I could learn the most from. This principle has guided my career decisions: Ultimately, success in both life and business is about the people you surround yourself with.
What is a barrier you faced, and how did you overcome it?
I used to joke about hiding my Birkenstocks under the table when I was in investment meetings because, at that time, caring about the environment was seen as something “cute” or a nice-to-have interest. But I believed early on that there was a massive business opportunity in transitioning every industry on the planet toward sustainability. Eventually, I realized I had to roll up my sleeves and be part of the solution. We’re still working on it, but if you look at how much capital has flowed into the space, how many people are moving into jobs in this sector and how many sectors are actively and publicly working on their carbon transition plans, a lot of progress has been made.
What do you think are some interesting, overlooked career opportunities in climatetech?
Climate companies are, fundamentally, companies like any others. They don’t just need technical engineers and scientists; they also need marketers, finance managers, software developers and HR teams — essentially, all functions you’d find in typical tech or business sectors. So no matter the discipline, geography or sector, there are some really awesome opportunities out there.
