Eileen Tanghal and Tara Bishop of Black Opal Ventures: Lessons I Learned From Last Year To Take Our Organization to the Next Level in 2024
An Interview With Chad Silverstein
We learned that a number of high-net-worth women want to invest in venture capital but have never found ways to do so. We were thrilled by the positive response of these women and their alignment in our values.
This series aims to discuss the experiences and lessons learned by top executives over the past year, and how these insights are shaping the landscape for change and innovation in 2024. The past year has been a time of unprecedented challenges and opportunities, requiring adaptive leadership and innovative strategies. We believe that sharing these experiences can inspire and guide others in their endeavors to drive positive change in their organizations and industries. I had the pleasure of interviewing Eileen Tanghal and Dr. Tara Bishop.
Eileen Tanghal has held numerous roles within the technology industry over the last 30 years including as an engineer, entrepreneur, corporate innovation leader, venture capitalist and national security advisor. She started her career as an early member of a successful semiconductor startup, worked as a venture capitalist in the early 2000’s in Europe and then served as the Global Head of Venture Capital at Applied Materials and then the Vice President of New Business Ventures at ARM. She then went into serve as a Senior Partner and Managing Director at In-Q-Tel — the venture capital partner of the CIA where she was instrumental in advising government leaders setting policy around national leadership in semiconductors. In 2022, she co-founded Black Opal Ventures with a mission to use hard tech to improve healthcare equity and access and remove bias. Eileen has a B.S. in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from MIT and an MBA from London Business School.
Dr. Tara Bishop is passionate about improving health and healthcare. In her almost twenty-year career as a physician executive, Tara has on-the-ground experience in delivery system improvement, health policy, payer operations, product development, value-based care, and start-ups. She is the founder and managing partner of Black Opal Ventures, a venture capital firm that invests in companies that are transforming healthcare through technology. Tara served as the Chief Medical Officer at Bind, a health insurance start-up that is at the forefront of disrupting healthcare. Tara is also an associate clinical professor at Weill Cornell Medical School in New York City. Prior to joining Bind, Tara was the Medical Director and Senior Expert at McKinsey & Co. She designed new payment models for numerous clients. She was an associate professor of Medicine and Healthcare Policy at Cornell Medical School where she did cutting-edge research on health policy, innovative technologies, and health services. She directed quality improvement at Cornell and cared for patients as a primary care doctor. Eileen has a B.S. in Chemical Engineering from MIT and an MD from Cornell.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Can you share a little about your background and what pivotal moments led you to your current position as an executive?
As respected leaders in healthcare and technology, coupled with a passion for implementing industry changes, our goal is to find companies that are revolutionizing industries through the use of technology. By combining both of our areas of expertise and leaning on our backgrounds, we had the tenacity to create a firm where diverse perspectives are welcomed. We have found that the collision of two industries drives both outsized returns and impact. In the beginning of our careers, we saw little convergence of Eileen’s work in deep tech and Tara’s in healthcare delivery. Over the past decade, we have seen our world’s collide and have truly industry transforming impact.
What were the early challenges you faced in your career, and how did they shape your approach to leadership?
As women who started our careers in the late 90’s in male dominated industries, we often felt the need to be trailblazers in our fields. As we were crafting our careers in engineering, medicine, and venture capital, there was no a playbook that we could follow. As a result, some of the challenges we faced were unique to women like being the first female engineer on a team or navigating careers while having young kids. Despite the challenges, there came opportunity to chart our own course.
At Black Opal Ventures, we are creating a more inclusive venture ecosystem and we hope our paths can serve as a playbook for others. We believe everyone should be given the opportunity to show their unfettered brilliance like a Black Opal.
We often learn the most from our mistakes. Can you share one that you made that turned out to be one of the most valuable lessons you’ve learned?
Fundraising over the past few years was quite the journey. We have made mistakes along the way like not having a refined story in the early days of fundraising to approaching some investors who were not a right fit for our fund. We have learned a lot about fundraising over the course of two years and will take the many lessons with us as we raise subsequent funds.
As an executive, how do you define success, both personally and for your organization?
Our mission as a firm is to create a more inclusive venture capital ecosystem that invests in companies that are using tech to solve the world’s biggest problems. We define our success as financial returns for our investors, the impact we have on healthcare, and our ability to make venture capital more inclusive.
Reflecting on 2023, what was the most unexpected challenge you faced, and how did you navigate it?
We did not expect the crash of Silicon Valley Bank and other regional banks in March 2023 and one of the most stressful moments for us in 2023. But with this situation, we were able to lean on our crisis planning and learned lessons around communication and risk management.
What was a significant risk you took this year, and how did it turn out?
Last November, we decided to open the fund up to individual investors outside our immediate network. We were overwhelmed with the positive response especially amongst high-net-worth female individual investors. You can see more on this in Women of the World Endowment’s Impact report here.
How has your company’s mission or purpose affected its overall success? Can you explain the methods or metrics you use to evaluate the impact of this purpose-driven strategy on your organization?
Our vision is to create a more inclusive venture capital ecosystem that invests in companies that are using tech to solve the world’s largest problems, beginning with healthcare. We are bringing in more people from outside the industry into the venture capital ecosystem as LPs and as Black Opal Fellows. We are also tracking the impact our portfolio companies are having on healthcare outcomes. We have already benefited from these initiatives with better deal flow and access to a wider array of experts.
Have you ever faced a situation where your commitment to your purpose and creating a positive social impact clashed with the profitability in your business? Have you ever been challenged by anyone on your team or have to make a tough decision that had a significant impact on finances? If so, how did you address and reconcile this conflict?
Black Opal’s values are deeply engrained in every aspect of our business. The decisions we make each day are driven by these values. We have thus far not have had to sacrifice social impact in the name of profitability. We believe the companies and investments that have the most positive impact in healthcare will also be the most profitable ones.
Could you list the top five things you’ve learned in 2023, with specific examples of how these lessons impacted your decisions or strategies?
- We learned that a number of high-net-worth women want to invest in venture capital but have never found ways to do so. We were thrilled by the positive response of these women and their alignment in our values.
- We had a thesis that bringing diversity to boards and the VC ecosystem would prove to be a strong differentiator. We were right and have been welcomed as investors in really great companies.
- Despite advancements in technologies, it is still difficult for companies with novel solutions to connect with customers. Healthcare is hard to navigate. By bringing together our experiences and network, we are able to help highly innovation companies impact healthcare.
- We learned that not every investor or venture capitalist has the resilience to stay the course even in turbulent economic times and we will need resilience to be a long-lasting firm.
- 2023 proved to be a challenging year for healthcare as many organizations faced staffing shortages and financial challenges from Covid yet it also proved to be a year of excitement about artificial intelligence and its potential to transform the industry.
How have these top five lessons from 2023 changed your outlook or approach for 2024?
We are excited about the investing prospects in 2024. It is a year when we believe highly innovative technologies will come to market, yet valuations will continue to be reasonable. Given our learnings from 2023, we believe we will be well-positioned to find great investments this year.
In terms of innovation and adaptation, what’s one change you implemented in 2023 or plan to do in 2024 that you believe will be crucial for the future of your business?
This past year, we launched our Fellows program. The goal of this program is to teach people that might otherwise not have the opportunity to learn the art of venture capital. Additionally, we have seen that including diverse perspectives in our deal analyses and market overviews leads to more fruitful discussion and drives unique theses.
As a leader, how do you foster a culture of continuous learning and improvement within your team or organization?
We aim to foster continuous learning and improvement both within our organization and with our portfolio companies. We have a few initiatives that aim to train the next generation of venture capitalists including BOV Venture School and the BOV Fellows program. We have developed unique programs for our portfolio companies on go-to-market strategies, measuring impact, and talent resources.
Looking at the broader industry landscape, what emerging trends do you think will be most influential in the coming year?
In 2024 we anticipate seeing the following trends emerge in the industry:
- Defensetech and Healthtech will continue to overlap.
- Generative AI will continue to improve patient outcomes and be a resource for medical professionals.
- There will be a slow but continued wave of digitization in healthcare.
- Leveraging and generating unique data will unlock new potential for organizations.
- Eliminating bias will take center stage.
- Healthcare companies will lead the future of responsible AI.
If you and I were having a conversation one year from now, and we were looking back at the past 12 months, what specifically has to happen for you to be happy with your progress?
Next year our success will be measured by our ability to support our existing portfolio companies and the impact those organizations will have on their respective industries.
How can our readers further follow your work or your company online?
Readers can follow us on LinkedIn and stay up to date with latest news by subscribing to our newsletter on our website.
This was great. Thanks for taking time for us to learn more about you and your business. We wish you continued success!
About the Interviewer: Chad Silverstein, a seasoned entrepreneur with over two decades of experience as the Founder and CEO of multiple companies. He launched Choice Recovery, Inc., a healthcare collection agency, while going to The Ohio State University, His team earned national recognition, twice being ranked as the #1 business to work for in Central Ohio. In 2018, Chad launched [re]start, a career development platform connecting thousands of individuals in collections with meaningful employment opportunities, He sold Choice Recovery on his 25th anniversary and in 2023, sold the majority interest in [re]start so he can focus his transition to Built to Lead as an Executive Leadership Coach. Learn more at www.chadsilverstein.com
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