Heidi Roizen

Heidi Roizen, a Stanford University graduate in creative writing, chose a unique way of advancing in her career which is through networking. After her MBA at Stanford, she went on to try her hand at entrepreneurship, then as Vice President in Apple. Later, she started coaching start-up’s as a mentor capitalist and eventually became a venture capitalist at Softbank. All throughout her professional journey, she focused on building her network through performance and consistency and constantly growing its’ breadth and depth. And, this has been very fruitful in building a successful career and a great reputation for herself in the technology industry. However, after increasing her role at Softbank to 80% and becoming a full-fledged venture capitalist, I believe Heidi wouldn’t have much time left to dedicate in expanding her network. At the same time, her existing personal and professional relationships might as well get affected.
Heidi not only had a broad network, but she also had profound relations with her network as she made people feel that she is personally connected to them. But, with this new role she wouldn’t have enough time to attend meetings with all the people in her network who look up to her for an important conversation and might have to turn down on them. This would impact her relationship with them and if …show more content…
If Heidi fails to give time to networking, she would slowly start to lose out her network and this would impact Softbank’s growth too. As stated in HBR article “How to build your network” – “Networks deliver three unique advantages: private information, access to diverse skill sets and power. Keeping this in mind, I think Softbank should reduce Heidi’s time as venture capitalist from 80% to say about 50%, consequently, giving her ample time in sustaining existing relations and building new