Highline Beta Doubles Down on Growth, brings on Ian Carnevale, co-founder of Andela as VP Of Growth Ops
Today, we are thrilled to announce that Ian Carnevale has joined team Highline Beta as VP of Growth Ops. This is an exciting milestone for the company that has proven its unique business and operating model, serving global corporations and building new ventures.
“Highline Beta builds and funds better ventures with ambitious enterprise clients, like AB InBev, RBC and AmFam. As more global corporations move from talking about new ideas into the implementation and actionable innovation stages, Highline Beta is well positioned to unlock and accelerate growth, with both startups and enterprises sharing the upside. With Ian onboard as our first VP of Growth Ops, we will be scaling the venture innovation model we know works” says Marcus Daniels, CEO of Highline Beta. “ We currently operate out of Toronto, Vancouver, and NYC, and will now be exploring growth opportunities in key startup and corporate innovation ecosystems in the US and the UK.”
Ian Carnevale started his entrepreneurial journey over 10 years ago, driven by a passion to build scalable education systems that impact economies and the people within them. In 2014, he co-founded Andela with Iyin Aboyeji, Nadayar Enegesi, Brice Nkengsa, Jeremy Johnson, and Christina Sass.
Founded on the principle that “Brilliance is evenly distributed, opportunity is not,” Andela’s roots go back to Toronto’s Queen Street West. Quickly growing into a global company with offices in the US, Nigeria, Kenya, Ghana, Uganda, Rwanda and Egypt, Andela recently closed a $100 million Series D round led by Al Gore, also counting Google Ventures, Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, Serena Williams—and Highline.vc among early backers. Today, Andela builds distributed engineering teams for more than 200 companies, with over 1,200 of Africa’s most talented software developers.
“Entrepreneurs are one of the most important drivers of human progress.”
Carnevale has built a reputation for catalyzing growth, and with Andela being in capable hands, Ian went on to build Street Capital with partners Aboyeji and Enegesi, a Sub-Saharan African focused fund. “We identified passionate and experienced missionary entrepreneurs with an informed point of view on how to turn Africa’s largest challenges into business opportunities,” says Carnevale. “And then we would actively build new companies with these entrepreneurs using our enterprise and government network, providing access to expertise, global markets and capital.”
“My clothes, couch and closest friends are still in Nigeria! But I’m here, ready to tackle my next challenge” — Ian Carnevale, VP of Growth, Highline Beta
Having spent the past 5 years living between New York and Nigeria, Ian recently moved back to Toronto to take on his next adventure, and made the decision to join Highline Beta as VP of Growth Ops.
“Entrepreneurs are one of the most important drivers of human progress, and by creating systems that build up leaders you can have a far greater impact on the world than you could on your own,” says Carnevale. “Highline Beta is founded on a similar idea that by funding and building new ventures with ambitious enterprises you will drive exponential impact: 1+1=3.”
No company succeeds in a vacuum.
With Ian Carnevale joining the team, Highline Beta will focus on the next chapter in the company’s roadmap: scaling its business and delivery model that earns the trust and accelerates the impact of ambitious enterprises and founders.