Claire heads up Strategic Partnerships for Microsoft Ventures with leading accelerators including TechStars. As a Principal in the new seed fund, Claire is directly evaluating and investing in early stage startups, working closely with the partners that incubate, invest in and support them.
Claire is a seasoned business development, sales and marketing manager and senior evangelist with deep expertise in the startup ecosystem.
Her expertise ranges from Startups, Business Development, Venture Capital, Sales, Marketing, Entrepreneurship, Strategy, Emerging Technology, to Cloud Computing, Global Partnerships, Emerging Markets, to Evangelism and Communications.
US State Dept Program Advisor (Office of Global Partnerships); Astia Silicon Valley Advisory Board; Seedcamp Mentor; Judge and Speaker at major industry events; Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts (FRSA); ‘Icon of Technology’ award by the UK Government (2010), Irish Times Silicon Valley Top 50 (2012); UK Prime Minister’s Women’s Enterprise Taskforce (2007-2010). Before Microsoft, Claire worked with Compaq at the global distributor Ingram Micro and with Siemens at Marconi (Ericsson). Claire began her career as a graduate with IBM Ireland.