Keynote

From Engineer to Managing a $3B Fund

Join Navin Chaddha in a keynote fireside chat with Nandini Easwar, SheTO Board Member, as he shares his remarkable journey from being an engineer to managing a $3B fund.

Navin will provide insights into the pivotal moments and decisions that shaped his career, highlighting the challenges and opportunities he encountered along the way.

In this candid conversation, you’ll discover the leadership lessons Navin has learned throughout his journey, including how he transitioned from a technical role to a top-tier investment leader. This session is a unique opportunity to gain valuable perspectives on navigating career growth, embracing risk, and leading with impact in the world of technology and finance.

SPEAKER

SPEAKER

Navin Chaddha

MANAGING PARTNER MAYFIELD

Navin leads Mayfield as Managing Partner. Under his leadership, Mayfield has raised eight U.S. funds and guided over 80 companies to positive outcomes. He has been named a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum and has ranked on the Forbes Midas List of Top 100 Tech Investors sixteen times, including being named in the Top Five in 2020, 2022, 2023 and 2024. Navin’s investments have created over $120 billion in equity value and over 40,000 jobs.

During his venture capital career, Navin has invested in over 60 companies, of which 18 have gone public and 27 have been acquired. Navin was one of the earliest Silicon Valley investors to leverage the promise of tech in India. He is Vice Chair of the Stanford Engineering Venture Fund and advisor to Neythri.org.

Navin is an active philanthropist who supports education, diversity, equity, inclusion, and food scarcity groups. He is the champion of the 25+ year Mayfield Fellows program at Stanford University, which trains students in entrepreneurship. He is the co-founder of Plaksha University in India, which is reimagining technology education. Under Mayfield’s Access for All program, interns from College Track are placed at Mayfield companies. Navin has partnered with The Farmlink Project, an organization that fights food insecurity by repurposing surplus produce, to create the Field Fellows changemakers program. He is also a board member of HimForHer, which is aimed at accelerating diversity on corporate boards. Other groups Mayfield supports include Neythri.org, AnitaB.org, Khan Academy and Second Harvest.

As an entrepreneur, Navin has co-founded or led three startups including VXtreme: a streaming media platform, acquired by Microsoft to become Windows Media; Rivio/CPA.com: a SaaS provider for small businesses, and iBeam Broadcasting (NASDAQ:IBEM): a streaming media content delivery network. Navin holds an MS degree in electrical engineering from Stanford University and a B.Tech degree in electrical engineering from IIT Delhi, where he was honored with the distinguished IIT Alumni Award.

MODERATOR

MODERATOR

Nandini Easwar

VICE PRESIDENT ENGINEERING, HR ACUITY

Nandini Easwar is the CTO and Co-Founder of SpeakFully.com who led her company through an acquisition in Nov 2022. At Speakfully, she was responsible for the product and tech side of the human-centric SaaS platform to address workplace mistreatment including retaliation, harassment, and microaggression. Known for humanizing tech solutions, Nandini ensured the success of the Speakfully mission by integrating social and emotional intelligence into the overall product roadmap of the brand. Prior to joining Speakfully, Nandini was the Global Head of Engineering at Esurance and led the engineering function through the acquisition of Esurance by Allstate in 2012.

Nandini is now VP, Engineering at HR Acuity, the acquiring company of her startup Speakfully. She currently also serves as a Board Member at SheTO.org, an organization whose mission is to increase the 9% representation of women+ in engineering leadership. She is a technical advisor at Intelliswift, Good4Work, Fikia and is a founding member at FirstBoard.io, working on increasing representation of women on corporate boards. A passionate proponent of women in STEM, Nandini was invited to a special White House briefing where she expressed her support for SheTO. She supports access to diverse talents while enabling women to grow and learn to their fullest potential.

Nandini holds a Masters degree in Computer Science and holds a certificate on Executive Leadership from UC Berkeley Haas School of Business. She speaks about equity and equality of women in tech and has been featured in many articles including Medium. Her startup Speakfully was named the top 20 startups to watch for in 2022 and 2019.