PALO ALTO, CA and CAMBRIDGE, MA--(Marketwired - Nov 2, 2015) - Jennifer Holmstrom, formerly a leader on Facebook's executive search team, has joined Highland Capital Partners as a Talent Partner. Holmstrom will lead the firm's talent program in Silicon Valley with a focus on helping portfolio companies recruit, retain, and develop key managers and employees. Holmstrom will be based in Highland's Palo Alto office.
The early stage venture capital firm is among the pioneers in the venture capital world having a long time focus on talent. Craig Driscoll, a Talent Partner based in Highland Capital's Cambridge office, was hired in 2005. He will work in concert with Holmstrom to further enhance the firm's national talent network.
Holmstrom's history and responsibilities at Facebook have enabled her to develop a deep network of relationships across the Valley. As the social network grew, she built out the engineering executive search team in addition to hiring technical leaders across the company. Holmstrom also closely collaborated with the founders of Instagram and Oculus to strengthen each group's core leadership and management functions.
"Jen's career has been focused on team building in fast growing companies. In addition to years of experience, she has a uniquely deep network that spans both technical and product leaders in the Valley. She has longstanding relationships which further strengthen our ability to connect with talent from the most important technology companies in the world," said Partner Manish Patel who joined Highland from Google.
Before Facebook, Holmstrom was a Director at San Francisco-based Riviera Partners, an executive search firm focused on recruiting engineering, product and marketing leadership for fast growing venture-backed technology companies. Prior to Riviera, she was a Senior Associate at Schweichler Price Mullarkey & Barry, a San Francisco-based technology and energy focused talent search firm.
"Attracting the best talent is imperative for venture-backed startups," Holmstrom said. "Different types of skills are required at different stages of growth. I'm focused on helping our portfolio companies scale while cultivating our national talent network."
Peter Bell, a Partner at Highland Capital, said, "Highland has a 27-year history of putting people first. Jen will help continue this operating ethos as she works closely with our management teams. We have admired Jen and the way she works with management teams in build winning organizations for a long time. We are delighted to have her on the Highland team."
Holmstrom, a Canadian native, is a graduate of Boston College and has an MBA from the University of California at Berkeley.
About Highland Capital Partners
Highland Capital Partners invests in early-stage and select growth opportunities in enterprise and consumer technology. The firm, founded in 1988, has $3 billion under management and is currently investing its ninth fund, which has $400 million under management. In total, 44 Highland Capital-backed companies have gone public and 102 have been acquired. Current portfolio companies include VMTurbo, Jaunt, Enjoy, Shift, Scopely, ThredUp and Gigamon. Highland Capital is also well-known for its pioneering Summer@Highland program which started nearly a decade ago with a focus on exposing and encouraging entrepreneurship to university students at premier colleges across the U.S. For more information, visit www.hcp.com
Contact Information:
Media contact:
Alison Howard
Highland Capital Partners
Jennifer Jones
650-465-5831
