Advancing Women in Product Partners with Madrona Venture Group and Madrona Venture Labs to Bring New Educational Content and Experiences to Members

Partnership will support women and underrepresented groups as they accelerate their management careers

Advancing Women in Product (AWIP), a non-profit organization empowering women and underrepresented groups to enhance their skills and careers in senior technical, engineering and product roles, announced its partnership with Madrona Venture Group and Madrona Venture Labs to accelerate career advancement for tech workers and entrepreneurs in the Pacific Northwest and beyond.

AWIP works with more than 16,000 members across the globe to help them advance their careers and become product and technical leaders. Madrona Venture Group is the leading venture investor in the Pacific Northwest. Over their 25-year history of investing in technology companies, the firm has had 21 IPOs and helped companies as diverse as Amazon, Smartsheet, Rover and Redfin, grow and thrive. Madrona Venture Labs, a startup studio that works with founders to help make their vision a reality by bringing experts to the table, is also part of the partnership. Working together, AWIP and Madrona plan to combine their efforts to further close the skills gap women and other underrepresented groups face when moving into management roles, founder roles, and executive positions.

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“Partnering with Madrona Venture Group and Madrona Venture Labs was a natural fit for AWIP,” said Nancy Wang, founder and CEO of Advancing Women in Product and the General Manager of AWS Backup at Amazon Web Services. “Both organizations are committed to helping women and diverse groups boost their knowledge and skills in the areas they need so they can move into and thrive in leadership roles. We’ll be collaborating on everything from technical classes to navigating your first board seat to ensure our members are consistently getting the assistance and fresh insight that leads to their success.”

“We’ve been incredibly impressed with AWIP and its ability to provide valuable guidance for members, many of whom include the founders and teams we work with, on how to succeed in the technology industry,” said Hope Cochran, Managing Director at Madrona Venture Group. “We’ve always taken a hands-on approach to helping the companies we work with grow so it’s critical we partner with organizations like AWIP to expand the education and skills-based experiences, as well as networking opportunities, that we know make a difference in how women and other underrepresented groups are able to advance their careers in tech.”

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The new educational content and experiences will provide resources for AWIP members spanning both technical and management topics, including:

• Executive Roundtables, the first of which took place virtually on 11/12/20, featuring Hope Cochran, a Managing Director at Madrona Venture Group and leader of OnBoarding Women, with a group of VP- and C-level women in tech to discuss how best to approach being appointed to public boards
• 2021 Future Founder series, to provide a path to more diverse startup founders and employees
• A collaboration for AWIP’s upcoming Coursera course on cloud fundamentals, in partnership with Amazon Web Services

“Madrona Venture Group and Madrona Venture Labs are pillars of the startup community. Our AWIP members have so much to gain from the Madrona team’s years of insight and experience in navigating the entrepreneurial world. This partnership is just the first step in further serving AWIP Seattle and our community as a whole,” said Emily Kruger, Head of Seattle AWIP chapter and VP of Product, Kaskada.

“We’re looking forward to our work with the AWIP team, particularly the Future Founder series of seminars we’ll be organizing in 2021,” said Sudip Chakrabarti, Partner at Madrona Venture Group. “Our technical founders and members of AWIP deserve every opportunity to get the education and support they need to grow and secure a seat at the leadership table.”

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