Brett May

Brett May has 35 years of experience as an executive and investor in industrial and high-tech businesses at both Fortune-100 companies and at startups. As a Fortune 100 Global Executive, Brett led M&A, venture investing and strategic alliances for GE Digital. Brett was also the Managing Director of Business development for Cisco’s Emerging Technologies group, as well as the leader of VC and M&A for Cisco’s $5B services division.

As a startup executive, Brett was CFO/COO at Progenco, a successful biotech startup in Davis, CA, where he successfully raised VC at 9x pre-money step-up. Brett was also COO at MoodLogic, a cutting-edge data/analytics software company that was acquired by AMG (now Rovi). 

Brett was a consultant at McKinsey & Company in San Francisco and Palo Alto. While at McKinsey he was COO of the firm’s global Internet of Things practice, as well as a co-leader of the firm’s Corporate Venture Capital practice. Brett was also a senior manager at Accenture in their advanced technology group.

Brett’s Investment and M&A outcomes include ten technology acquisitions completed at GE and Cisco as well as nine corporate VC investment exits at average 4.2x MOIC and $400M+ pretax capital gain. Brett’s teams have also structured & announced alliances or joint ventures between GE or Cisco and the likes of Intel, AT&T, EMC, VMWare, Accenture, China Telecom, Softbank (JPN), Posco (ROK), Catalonia national government (ESP).

In addition, Brett has served on the boards of six different venture-backed software start-ups and a cybersecurity venture-capital fund (Forgepoint). Brett has an MBA from Northwestern University and a BS in Electrical Engineering from Mississippi State University. Brett is a life-long semi-professional musician in jazz, R&B, rock and country & western music.

Expertise:

Venture Capital & CVC, M&A, Corporate Strategy, Finance, Operations, Tech startups, Board of Directors & corporate governance

Location:

Palo Alto, CA

Roles:

COO, CFO, Corporate Development, Board of Directors

Sectors:

Technology (Software and Hardware), Industrial products & tech, Biotechnology & AgTech

Traits:

Operator, Strategist, Investor, Advisor