I have confession to make – I have been wanting to meet this week’s guest Dan Phillips for years. Ever since I started my career as a graduate at Macquarie bank in the 1990’s, the founder of Macquarie’s Technology Venture Capital Business has seemed like the stuff of myth and legend.
Over his more than 30 year career at Macquarie, Dan has not only build arguably the most successful corporate venture business in Australia, or perhaps the world, with numerous investments becoming billion dollar technology companies with an incredibly high strike rate, but he has done it without fan fare finding time to actively support philanthropic and social causes which are important to him. Dan was one of Scale’s first investors and has been on the board of Australian Philanthropic Services, the not for profit organisation encouraging greater charitable giving, particularly by wealthy individual donors.
However, when you ask Dan why he seems to keep such a low profile, he honestly can’t accept the premise of the question. He believes it’s the entrepreneurs who do all the hard work, and his job as an investor is to provide the capital, connections and support to enable them to fulfill their potential. He genuinely wants the entrepreneurs he backs to take centre stage and be the stars.
It has definitely been worth the wait to meet Dan!
Links
Australian philanthropic services
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
