< The 2015 Fintech Finance 35

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Vanessa Colella
Global Head of Venture Investing and Strategic Growth Initiatives
Citi Ventures

For Citi Ventures — the Palo Alto, California, outpost that Citigroup chief innovation officer Deborah Hopkins set up in 2010 — Vanessa Colella scans the horizon for start-ups that Citi can help nurture into meaningful, problem-solving, often disruptive technology businesses. A former biology teacher who has worked for McKinsey & Co. and Yahoo, Colella moved into Hopkins’s strategic investing unit two and a half years ago, after serving as Citi’s chief of North American marketing. The 45-year-old head of venture investing and strategic growth initiatives has been hands-on with portfolio companies, including San Francisco–based mobile payment business Square and Atlanta-based phone-fraud-prevention company Pindrop Security. Looking beyond such popular fintech themes as cryptocurrency — which she sees as “akin to early days in the Internet” — and information security, Colella observes a convergence of innovation around “democratization of access” to financial services, potentially bringing unbanked and otherwise underserved populations into the economic mainstream. “Because of the technology that’s available now, we can lower the cost of that advice or those services,” she says, adding that Square has effectively made electronic payments accessible for the first time to small retailers that traditional banks could not affordably serve. Colella says Citi seeks out collaborations that will result in “making money matters friction-free. We see hundreds of entrepreneurs who are incredibly passionate about making financial services better for people.”

 
The 2015 Fintech Finance 35

1. James Robinson III & James Robinson IV RRE Ventures 2. Jane Gladstone Evercore Partners 3. Matthew Harris Bain Capital Ventures Building Resilient Portfolios: Infrastructure’s Strategic Advantage Sponsored by IFM Investors May 9, 2025 4. Steven McLaughlin Financial Technology Partners 5. Jonathan Korngold General Atlantic

6. Richard Garman & Brad Bernstein FTV Capital 7. Amy Nauiokas & Sean Park Anthemis Group 8. Thomas Jessop Goldman Sachs Group 9. Meyer (Micky) Malka Ribbit Capital 10. Hans Morris Nyca Partners

11. Maria Gotsch Partnership Fund for New York City 12. Marc Andreessen Andreessen Horowitz 13. Barry Silbert Digital Currency Group 14. Jay Reinemann Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria 15. Mariano Belinky Santander InnoVentures

16. François Robinet AXA Strategic Ventures 17. Vanessa Colella Citi Ventures 18. Alan Freudenstein & Gregory Grimaldi Credit Suisse NEXT Fund 19. Justin Brownhill & Neil DeSena SenaHill Partners 20. Rodger Voorhies Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

21. Michael Schlein Accion International 22. Kenneth Marlin Marlin & Associates 23. Rumi Morales CME Ventures 24. Mark Beeston Illuminate Financial Management 25. Vladislav Solodkiy Life.SREDA

26. Fabian Vandenreydt Innotribe SWIFT 27. Derek White Barclays 28. Alex Batlin UBS 29. Jeffrey Greenberg & Vincenzo La Ruffa Aquiline Capital Partners 30. P. Howard Edelstein REDI Holdings

31. Nektarios Liolios Startupbootcamp FinTech 32. Roy Bahat Bloomberg Beta 33. Andrew McCormack Valar Ventures 34. Lawrence Wintermeyer Innovate Finance 35. Janos Barberis FinTech Hong Kong