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Lisa Lambert

Founder of UPWARD Women

San Francisco Bay Area

Overview 

Lisa Lambert is the Chief Investment Officer for Private Markets at George Kaiser Family Foundation, overseeing investments in various sectors such as EnergyTech, IoT, and FinTech. She is also a notable board member and founder of UPWARD Women and National Grid Partners, with a track record of investing in successful companies like Rock Rabbit and Dragos, showcasing her expertise in venture capital and investment strategies.

Work Experience 

  • Founder and CEO

    2024 - Current

    Whitestone Investors III, LLC has a dual strategy that balances innovation and stability. Our investment business drives digital transformation by deploying venture capital into next generation startups, and our acquisition business focuses on acquiring recession-proof small businesses that ensure resilience in essential industries. Though distinct, both approaches are united by a commitment to growth, scale, and long-term shareholder value creation.

  • Chief Investment Officer, Private Markets

    2023

    Managing GKFF’s extensive portfolio of private market investments with annual capacity for new investments in energy and technology, among other areas of strategic importance to the Foundation. Lisa will be based in Silicon Valley, expanding GKFF’s footprint by opening an office in Los Gatos and hiring a local team to complement the larger team in Tulsa.

  • Board Member

    2024

    Lucid Motors is the future of sustainable mobility, designing electric cars that further reimagines the driving experience. Lucid Group, Inc. is an American manufacturer of luxury electric vehicles, headquartered in Newark, California and manufactured at Lucid's factory in Arizona. The company was founded in 2007.

  • Board Member

    2021

    UL Solutions helps build a better world by advancing innovation safety, sustainability and connected security. Always upholding and pushing for rigorous scientific standards, UL continues to positively impact people and society by working for a safer, more secure and sustainable world.

  • Board Member

    2020

    Vital Energy is an independent energy company with headquarters in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Vital’s business strategy is focused on the acquisition, exploration and development of oil and natural gas properties, and midstream and marketing services, primarily in the Permian and Delaware Basins of West Texas

  • Board Member

    2024

    Multiscale (startup) digitalizes and accelerates the exploration of materials & manufacturing processes using cutting-edge AI, drastically reducing the number of physical experiments required to reach a solution.

Simplify and advance materials innovation for every product company

Raised $22,780,976.00 from Alumni Ventures.

  • Founder/CEO & Chairman

    2013

    UPWARD is an executive women’s networking group to accelerate career advancement. It's a place for sharing ideas, learning, and proactively helping each other to grow their careers. At UPWARD, you’ll find the connections to help you realize your professional potential and find the best business and career opportunities. Learn more at: www.upwardwomen.org.

Uniting Professional Women Accelerating Relationships & Development.

  • Interim CEO, Vital Energy Technology

    2023 - 2023

    Managed the formation and spinout of a new entity to commercialize digital technologies invented by Vital Energy Inc., to optimize the performance of its operations. Defined the spinout strategy, go-to-market approach, created marketing and VC content and the website framework for the company launch and fund raise process, and detailed the financial plan for execution. The project is on-going and progressing at an appropriate cadence.

  • Chief Technology & Innovation Officer, National Grid, Founder & President, National Grid Partners

    2018 - 2023

    Established the utility sector’s first innovation and investing organization called National Grid Partners. Recruited first 25 professionals and built a 48+ person organization and established 8 functional groups, including the Innovation Foundry: responsible for leading company-wide disruptive innovation projects; Pathfinding and Incubation: responsible for leading seed stage investments and incubating new product concepts; Corporate Venture Capital (CVC): responsible for leading early and expansion stage investments; Business Development: responsible for commercializing strategic engagements with technology startups; and Venture Acceleration: responsible for launching programs for culture transformation across the company with a focus on deploying technology commercialization, teaching entrepreneurship, and implementing lean startup methods. Founded and launched the NextGrid Alliance; an alliance of 104 utilities that collectively utilize technology and innovation to advance the clean energy future. Created vision, strategy, brand, and go-to-market plan for NGP, led the public launch and execution of the division including managing the 5 functions and launching public persona via our website, blog posts, media campaigns, and internal marketing campaigns. Closed 43 new investments for $400 million including four LP fund relationships, completed 7 exits (including producing 5 unicorns) for a total of 34.7% net realized IRR returning over $80 million in capital to National Grid in the first five years, with over $1B in projected proceeds from the top 10 performing companies in the portfolio, opened two Silicon Valley offices in Los Gatos and San Francisco. Completed two incubations in our San Francisco office (Leap, Copper Labs) and produced16 innovation projects delivering over $5 billion in potential benefits over 25 years and launched culture acceleration programs to bring entrepreneurial mindsets to National Grid.

Narragansett Electric is an electricity transmission and distribution service provider, as well as a natural gas distributor.

  • Board Member

    2022 - 2023

    Cyolo (startup) introduced the first real zero-trust solution, a safer architecture that allows organizations to securely connect all users to their working environments

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