The Yale School of Management Orientation Keynote Speaker Series is under the auspices of the Robert J. Silver ’50 Fund for Innovation in Management Education.
Heather Hiles is a creator, builder, and strategist renowned for founding several successful ventures in the private, public, political, and non-profit sectors. Her expertise spans finance, technology, M&A, education, workforce development, and corporate governance.
In the Bay Area, Hiles founded two non-profit organizations that grew to have large-scale societal impact, helping thousands of people get off welfare into living wage jobs and tens of thousands of low-income people acquire their first assets.
As the sole founder of Pathbrite, the first cloud-based portfolio platform, she took her ideas from research and wireframes into full enterprise software serving over four million users. From 2012 to 2020, Hiles was the Black Woman to have raised the most venture capital and had the largest exit.
Hiles co-founded a seed-stage venture capital fund that deployed $25 million in its first year. She invested hundreds of millions of dollars in for-profit and non-profit ventures at the Gates Foundation. After working at the Gates Foundation, Heather took on the challenge to build the first statewide online community college, preparing and placing Californians in tech-related jobs. Notably, Heather joined the board of Udemy, where she serves on the Audit committee, supported the IPO process, and chairs the Nomination/Governance committee. Today, Heather is investing in the healthcare education space. Her accomplishments have earned her recognition, including being named to the Inaugural List of Forbes 50 Over 50 Women.