Bedy Yang: 'corporations often come from a place of fear of being disrupted'

Companies that call themselves global do not always count on multicultural employees in their top leadership ranks. We cannot say that about 500 Startups, one of the most active venture capital firms in the world, whose San Francisco-based managing partner Bedy Yang was born of Chinese parents in Brazil and grew up in the town of Foz do Iguaçu, at the border with Paraguay. Bedy absorbed the three cultures and languages from an early age, and she uses this versatility to her professional advantage in recruiting start-ups throughout the world to invest in. She also plays the roles of global operator of 500 Startups and advisory board member at non-profit organisations such as H2 Global, positions that give her a broad view of the global venture capital landscape. ‘Corporations often come from a place of fear of being disrupted’, she told LSE Business Review’s managing editor Helena Vieira on 7 November, during the Web Summit conference in Lisbon.