Sara Deshpande

Investor

Sara has been working with startup founders for over seven years. In addition to investing in seed-stage consumer startups at Maven, she works hands-on with the 20+ companies in the Maven portfolio and manages the Maven mentor network. An enthusiastic supporter of entrepreneurs, Sara previously ran early-stage startup programming at The Idea Village, an entrepreneurship engine in New Orleans which has been driving the entrepreneurial rebirth of The Big Easy post-Katrina. While at The Idea Village, she built and managed a team of over 40 employees, contractors, and mentors to deliver direct services to over 1,200 companies.

Prior to joining the Maven team, Sara launched her own consulting and advisory business in 2014 to help founders, investors, and their networks thrive. In addition to New Orleans and California, Sara’s passion for startups led to serving clients in West Virginia, Kansas, Ohio, and Johannesburg, South Africa. She shares some of these experiences in her TEDx Talk (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1uR4-aEk5lQ). Sara was previously a management consultant in the Strategy and Operations practice at Deloitte Consulting in San Francisco. She holds a BS in Finance from Xavier University in Cincinnati, Ohio and an MBA from the Stanford University Graduate School of Business.