Step up to the Counter: Steve Blank, Amy Banse and more Speaker Announcements
Gearing up for Counter IV—the premier gathering of corporate venture capitalists on October 19th in San Francisco 🗓️
October is quickly approaching and several more speakers have stepped up to the Counter. Steve Blank, “The Father of Modern Entrepreneurship” will be joining us along with a batch of other accomplished investors and community leaders. We are also bringing in comedian and SoCal “activist” Chad from the comedy duo Chad & JT to kick off the after-party.
Steve Blank is an adjunct professor at Stanford and a co-founder of the Gordian Knot Center for National Security Innovation. Steve consults for the National Security establishment on innovation methods, processes, policies, and doctrine.
His book The Four Steps to the Epiphany is credited with launching the Lean Startup movement. He created the curriculum for the National Science Foundation Innovation Corps. At Stanford, he co-created the Department of Defense Hacking for Defense and Department of State Hacking for Diplomacy curriculums. His follow-on book The Startup Owner’s Manual described a process for turning ideas into scale and his Harvard Business Review cover story redefined how large organizations can innovate at speed.
Steve's latest class at Stanford, Technology, Innovation, and Great Power Competition, is providing crucial insight on how technology will shape all the elements of national power.
Blank will take the stage at Counter IV for a fireside chat on defense technology investing.
We are also delighted to welcome Amy Banse for a fireside chat on CVC lessons learned and the importance of corporate board governance. Amy was a distinguished Comcast executive for almost three decades, including her role as Managing Director and Head of Funds at Comcast Ventures. She currently sits on company boards including Adobe Inc., The Clorox Company, On Holding AG and Lennar Corp. Amy has management knowledge through her executive leadership roles and deep strategic and financial expertise as an investor.
Every Counter Club event we run, from our first intimate gathering in 2018 to the Women in CVC Summit in Sonoma to Counter IV, we keep these guardrails in mind as former corporate venture practitioners:
FRESH approach: Led by practitioners of CVCs.
REAL talk: No party line. Talk about both the challenges and opportunities.
CURATED content: An invite-only FREE summit just for CVCs hosted by Counterpart Ventures and our partners.
IMPORTANT: How to Register
We expect Counter IV to be our biggest event yet. Doors will open at 8 AM and we will have a full stacked line-up leading into the after-party until late. It’s all going down at the beautiful Saint Joseph Art Society, a San Francisco gem.
Counter Club Members
If you already are a member of the Counter Club, log in and head to the event page to RSVP. You can also see the other attendees and see the full list of speakers:
Non-Counter Club Members
If you are a corporate VC and would like to attend the conference, please first register to join our community on the link below. Once activated, you can access all past and present events and fellow members (400+ from around the world).
If you are having trouble logging in or registering to the Counter Club, please email team@counterpart.vc .
More Speaker Announcements
We are excited to share the next batch of speakers for this year’s event. We’re particularly excited to hear from Thorsten Claus, Founding Member of the new NATO Innovation Fund and Kanishka Karunaratne Cheng, Founder/CEO of TogetherSF Action.
See the first round of speaker announcements in our previous release.
Chad Goes Deep at Counter
Chad Kroeger became an internet sensation through crashing city council meetings across the country, delivering requests like his most recent dank proposition to extend the Independence Day and proposal to change the national anthem. Last summer, Chad and his buddy JT took their activism to the streets to spread awareness about important issues to the public and documented it in their Netflix show, Chad and JT Go Deep (see trailer).
We are thrilled to announce Chad will deliver supreme stoke by closing out the Counter IV conference. Be sure to stay till the end to catch his stand-up.
Stay tuned for our full program and agenda.
We can’t wait to see you in San Francisco soon,
The Counterpart Team