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Consilience Ventures CEO Kevin Monserrat’s Advice On Building A Solid Foundation For Your Startup
Kevin Monserrat is a venture capitalist who got his start in life as a French firefighter.
No, there’s not a linear progression that takes one from being a firefighter to being the head of a VC, but there are a surprising number of parallels between the two professions. After all, when you are a firefighter you:
- Are genuinely trying to help people
- Are working around the clock
- Have to constantly learn
- Have to be brave
- Have to BE a firefighter — you can’t fake it.
Montserrat, who recently talked to me for an episode of my podcast, The Back Yourself Show, translated his experience as a firefighter into a highly diverse career, which (so far) has included jobs as a purchaser, sales assistance, junior salesman for an American real estate company, online marketing consultant, and more. His career really took off in 2014, when he landed a role as head of business development and partnership at Ztudium and then became a VC relations and deal-flow manager for Microsoft.