Guest Karen Rands

AUTHOR KAREN RANDS

Karen Y. Rands is a Venture Catalyst, a Compassionate Capitalist, Economist, Investor, and Entrepreneur. She is the Leader and Advocate for the Compassionate Capitalist Movement. She believes entrepreneurialism is the greatest source of wealth creation. “You don’t have to be a successful entrepreneur to create generational wealth if you can learn how to invest in those companies that have the potential to be the next big thing,” according to Karen. With the recent deregulations, investors of all types have the opportunity to own a piece of an up and coming successful company before they go public or get acquired by a bigger company.

Inside Secrets to Angel Investing is the updated version of her original Learn to be an Angel Investor ebook series written a decade ago. Over the years, Karen has been on the inside track with investors and entrepreneurs that have created successful thriving companies, along with the lesson learned business failures. She sharpened her ax to bring 44 Inside Secrets to light in her first published book, Inside Secrets to Angel Investing, which provides a step-by-step guide for getting started as a private venture investor and a resource portal for the tools angel investors need to identify, discern, and participate in private company equity investments.

Karen has been described by some as a dominant force in the entrepreneur and investor markets with her blog, published articles, frequent speaking engagements, and her Compassionate Capitalist radio show. She left the corporate world over a decade ago, having been involved with many product launches, to pursue her passion for seeing innovation funded and to help the entrepreneur and investor community she served create thriving businesses. She has been a frequent speaker and mentor within numerous Small Business and Economic Development initiatives and was the recipient of the Advocate of the Year award in 2016 at the Flight to Freedom Summit in San Ramon, California, for her work to promote Compassionate Capitalism.

Karen defines Compassionate Capitalist as “A person who invests time, resources, knowledge, experience, AND money into an entrepreneurial endeavor to bring innovation to market, create jobs and ultimately create wealth for the investors and founders.”

After leaving her successful corporate career at IBM as a Complex Opportunity Business Manager, Karen immersed herself in the world of angel investing, first as the protégé to the founder of the Network of Business Angels & Investors (NBA&I), and then as the Managing Director to reboot the angel network with improved structure and processes. She interviewed hundreds of angel investors and venture capitalists over the years and developed the Learn to be an Angel Investor free ebook series. That reboot led to NBA&I being named one of the most active angel groups in the Southeast in 2009 and listed on Inc Magazine’s top 50 angel groups in the U.S. NBA&I was sunset in 2012 and reemerged as the National Network of Angel Investors (NNOAI).

For many years, investors that participated in Karen’s educational program Learn to be an Angel Investor had opportunities to apply their knowledge by meeting and evaluating companies at pitch dinners and conferences to consider for investment. Likewise, Karen’s team educates and coaches entrepreneurs on business strategy and access to capital, and specific functions as a consulting advisor on investor relations programs and preparedness for attracting and qualifying for debt and equity financing.

To date, over 2,000 investors have participated in some aspect of Karen’s investor education offerings and over 5,000 have attended her events seeking to meet with entrepreneurs that have compelling investment opportunities. Furthermore, over 1000 entrepreneurs have benefited from Karen’s teaching and coaching, many of them applying that knowledge to their business strategy, and capital raise activities. Her clients have raised over $60 Million (est) combined and created hundreds of jobs, according to what we have been able to track.

Karen Rands adopted the mantra Compassionate Capitalist in 2009 as the economy faltered and it was clear that only capitalism and entrepreneurialism would provide the foundation for long term economic growth. She renamed her radio show to include this designation. She is passionate about the concept because she believes that capitalism, for that matter, compassionate capitalism will be what leads to sustained economic growth. Karen believes that her speaking and writing can influence the movement of capital sitting on the sidelines into the marketplace to be put to work with qualified and worthy early stage high growth potential companies, and great things will result.

Karen Rands draws upon her academic experience garnered from a BA in Economics from Emory University and an MBA in Marketing from the University of Florida, and combines that with her practical experience from 13 years at IBM and over 10 years running an angel investor network and advising entrepreneurs to share in her articles, blogs, podcasts and now in her published works.

Karen has been a frequent speaker and mentor within numerous Small Business and Economic Development initiatives and was the recipient of the Advocate of the Year award in 2016 at the Flight to Freedom Summit in San Ramon, California, for her work to promote Compassionate Capitalism. Karen resides outside of Atlanta, GA with her family.