Native women launch on-ramp to asset management

Jacqueline Jennings is tired of being a demographic asterisk. At times, she has been one of the very few — possibly the only —indigenous woman in venture capital in the U.S. and Canada. 

Now, she’s investor-in-residence at a new apprenticeship program that is accepting applications through April 3. It intends to draw indigenous women into asset management, private equity and venture capital. Jennings’ goal is to speed the flow of Native women into the mainstream of asset management, hopefully bumping their presence from the statistically insignificant asterisk to at least a digit.

Through the Rematriating Economies Apprenticeship, 10 Native women will embark on a five month, paid apprenticeship intended to equip them with experiences, introductions, and skills training that qualify them for jobs as fund or asset managers. The program is organized by The Future is Indigenous Women, a collaborative effort comprised of Native Women Lead, New Mexico Community Capital and Roanhorse Consulting. As previously covered in InvestmentNews, American Indian tribes have a unique investing philosophy and emerging economic power.

"You’ll find other types of programs that help people become fund managers and get the technical skills, but it’s not going to come with the holistic honoring of where they as people come from,“ said Vanessa Roanhorse, one of the principals behind the effort. “We need more of us working in investment funds, so when deals and opportunities come our way, we can better understand how [corporate] founders do it. It’s not just learning how to be a fund manager. We want our women to feel strengthened by our history and culture and to work through our culture and traditions so when they are placed, they not only stay but thrive.”

As she works with Native Women Lead to design and lead the program, Jennings intends to blend personal and professional insights from her own experience. Her mixed heritage includes Cree, Anishinaabe and Red River Métis nations, and European settlers. 

In prior entrepreneurship incubators and accelerators she has designed and managed in the Pacific Northwest, “many of the participants were first-generation immigrants and they faced similar barriers as historically excluded groups,” Jennings said. Those barriers included “lack of experience, lack of network and lack of access to credit.” Now she designs entrepreneurship programs under her own banner, the Fireweed Fellowship.

Rematriating Economies will stretch beyond the model used by prior entrepreneurship programs, which have concentrated on tribal businesses, said Roanhorse and Jennings, to also identify ways to invest in individually owned Native companies and jump-start businesses that can scale to the point of pursuing outside investment.