Turn uncertainty into incredible outcomes as a Talent Investor

Posted: 16 June, 2023

The biggest lesson Kitty Mayo has ever learned is to be interested, and be interesting. She lets herself loose on whatever piques her interest. It might sound flighty at first glance, but as she says “inefficiencies have made it possible to gain all my experiences”. It’s those experiences that have made her a Talent Investor that founders want to learn from.

While she’s contributed to a few core teams at EF in her long tenure here, it’s discovering and nurturing the next generation of founders that keeps her most engaged. Kitty describes the role of a Talent Investor as being on the front line, constantly meeting new people and finding potential within them that they may not have even expected to find within themselves.

A growth mindset is the key to pivoting careers

“It’s a growth mindset,” she says, “being constantly interested in new fields and getting into the habit of changing things up makes it very easy to pivot from one thing to the next.” And pivot she has, from architecture to French at university, later from teaching in schools to teaching girls to code, to nurturing the next generation of founders at Entrepreneur First.

Throughout it all, the virtues that lead to success have always been bubbling under the surface. It’s all rooted in a desire to have tangible, human, impact. She chose architecture initially “to build physical spaces that influence the way people live their lives and interact with each other”. “A little megalomaniacal,” she admits ruefully, but that’s the impact seen in every startup founder she nudges towards greatness.

“Catalysing trajectories”, as Kitty puts it, “is the real driver” for her. It’s what led her to teaching, and ultimately what makes her such a good Talent Investor. She used to believe that her favourite part of the job was the intellectual part: researching new technologies and keeping abreast of developments in her fields of interest. Over time, she realised that the work energises her most is spending time with, and shaping the ambition of, real people in whom she sees the potential to create something world-changing. In a way, she’s fulfilled her architectural dream: building skyscrapers out of the founders she works with.

“You don’t need to be an expert to be an investor. You just have to be able to surface expert knowledge from deeply technical people to realise their potential.”

Turns out, you don’t have to be an expert in every field that any potential entrepreneur is interested in. Kitty’s secret is a people skill more than anything: “You just have to be able to surface the expert knowledge from these deeply technical people”. That’s not to say she goes in clueless – Kitty has plenty of experience with deeply technical areas to draw from – but her role is to ask questions that help founders get to the answers themselves.

She’s supported by the greater culture at EF to thrive in that mindset, calling it “curious and intellectual”, enabled by the variety of interests within the company that aren’t seen at smaller, more specialised start ups she’s experienced.

Nurturing founders is only half the story, however. Before they walk through the EF doors, Kitty and her team have spent a lot of time figuring out whether this is right for them, and whether they are right for the programme.

For all Kitty’s experience with people, it’s been a fun challenge to develop her instinct for finding a good candidate. At one point, influenced by The Righteous Mind [Jonathan Haidt], she worried her decisions were too emotional and over-indexed on facts and logic. But leaning into her personal strengths helped her find a successful middle ground. While the facts are important, she’s learnt to acknowledge and interrogate her gut instincts when interviewing candidates. It’s not about making random intuitive decisions, but trusting the distillation of all her experiences and practice in those moments.

“The best people,” she says, “are the ones that make me want to run screaming towards the void with them.” For Kitty, the uncertainty and chaos in their potential is what makes things interesting, “if outcomes are uncertain, there’s a chance something incredible could happen.”

It’s an unexpected job, perhaps, being a Talent Investor. Kitty’s work is at the frontier of venture investing, focusing on the people that drive innovation rather than waiting to invest in what they create. Her advice to people entering the field is to lean into the characteristics that make you unique rather than optimising for metrics to trade with traditional investors at VC events. Building her own identity as a Talent Investor has been important in the context of building a new category of investment.

Maybe you’re just like Kitty, restlessly curious about the world around you. If you’re ready to pivot into what could be the most important role of your career, becoming a Talent Investor could be just the right fit. Catalyse your trajectory and apply today.

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