Denise Thomas
Denise is a proven and dynamic leader who has spent more than 20 years helping entrepreneurial companies develop breakthrough ideas. Her public and private company expertise spans the financial services, technology, healthcare, hospitality and online services industries, and she has led companies backed by leading venture capital firms, including Kleiner Perkins, Mohr Davidow and Sequoia Capital.
In the FinTech industry, Denise is considered a visionary and highly respected executive leader. She is one of the few women to receive venture funding for a FinTech startup. Denise founded ApplePie Capital to create a new, more efficient source of capital for franchise businesses.
Denise has founded three other companies, and held executive and management positions with SharesPost, Healthiest You, Navigenics, LesConcierges, OffRoad Capital, Onyx Microcomputer, Post Communications, Kao Infosystems, and National Semiconductor.
She has been a guest lecturer at both the Stanford Graduate School of Business and the Haas School of Business, University of California Berkeley.
3 words to describe Nature?
GROUNDING. INSPIRING. FEARSOME
3 things Nature taught you?
WE ARE NOT IN CONTROL
THERE IS MUCH TO LEARN
THERE IS WONDER AND FEAR
3 most treasured Nature spots?
HALEAKALA CRATER
YOSEMITE
WALDEN POND
When you look at the ocean, it makes you feel…?
EXPANSIVE
When you see a forest, it makes you feel…?
ADVENTURE
When you see a volcano, it makes you feel…?
SAD
When you see a sunrise or sunset, it makes you feel…?
INSPIRED
When you hear thunder, it makes you feel…?
EXCITEMENT
When you hear the wind howling, it makes you feel…?
LIKE RETREATING
Are you an Ocean, Mountain, Forest, or Desert person?
OCEAN
On a scale of 1 to 10, how important is Nature to your well-being?
8
Share with us a childhood nature memory?
MY MEMORIES ARE NOT FROM MY CHILDHOOD UNFORTUNATELY. MY FAMILY DID NOT SPEND TIME IN NATURE.
