If you hear “venture capitalist” and think of a man who definitely lives in Silicon Valley, probably drives a Tesla, and favors Patagonia fleeces to blazers, we encourage you to conjure another image, too: a woman—just over five feet tall—who calls NYC home, takes the subway, and is more often than not in heels. Such describes BBG Ventures co-founder Nisha Dua, and during a visit to her office in downtown Manhattan, we gathered many more descriptors: entrepreneur, mentor, strategist, badass.

Born in Australia to Indian parents, Dua grew up in a small town outside Sydney and moved to the city for school. Afterwards she worked as a mergers and acquisitions lawyer before going into management consulting for Bain Capital. As she pondered her next move, she found herself drawn to tech. “I knew that I was really excited about business and building things, and Bain was like my mini MBA, but I loved media, I loved technology, and I love new things,” she says. “I had all these job offers in tech in San Francisco, but I was desperate to move to New York.” In a turn that she describes as “serendipitous,” she was appointed Chief of Staff for Susan Lyne, who, at the time, had stepped down from the board of AOL to run a portion of the business.

“Everyone was like, ‘Why are you moving to America to work for AOL? Does that even still exist? What’s your AIM screen name?

’

[

laughs

]. But it was probably the single best decision of my career. It completely changed my career trajectory because I chose to move to work with someone who was a phenomenal and formidable business leader, who also just happened to be a woman.”

Today Dua splits her time between investing in women-led companies as co-founder and partner at BBG Ventures and supporting the next generation of females in tech through the #BUILTBYGIRLS platform. Ahead, Dua walks us through her inspiring, impactful career.

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