about

Hi! I’m Val.

I'm passionate about business media and the business of media. Since graduating from Harvard Business School in May 2020, I moved to Berlin as part of the media conglomerate Axel Springer's management rotational program. Throughout the program, I will rotate across functions and portfolio companies, alternating between being an investor, an operator, and a product manager.

Prior to HBS, I was a writer and editor for Fortune magazine. My focus was on highlighting powerful women in business and drawing attention to gender inequality in the workplace. While at Fortune, I interviewed Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg, feminist icon Gloria Steinem, Huffington Post founder Arianna Huffington, U.S. presidential candidate Kirsten Gillibrand, and Barack Obama's senior advisor Valerie Jarrett. My work was retweeted by former U.S. secretary of state Hillary Clinton (a personal win!), and cited by a number of scholars—including in an HBS case about gender equity in venture capital.

At Fortune, my responsibilities included producing The Broadsheet, a daily newsletter about news that matters to professional women, and hosting Broad Strokes, a digital video show on the same topic. I was a regular public speaker and participated in and moderated a number of panel discussions. Speaking highlights include moderating panels at SXSW and Adweek and emceeing the premiere of the Dream, Girl documentary. Of course, most of what I did on a daily basis was write: I published over 1,000 stories over the course of three years.

I started my career as a consultant: First as a brand strategist at boutique consultancy Prophet, and then at Teneo, a strategic communications advisory firm. I've also held internships as a reporter at Euromoney magazine and a seed-stage investor at Bloomberg Beta. I graduated summa cum laude with a degree in Economics from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, where I minored in Creative Writing and wrote about race, gender, and sexuality for the student newspaper, The Daily Pennsylvanian.

I speak English and Russian fluently, French haltingly, and very basic German.