Julianne Zimmerman on the Inventive Legacies of Immigrants

This week on JobMakers, host Denzil Mohammed talks with Julianne Zimmerman, managing director at Reinventure Capital, lecturer on Social Entrepreneurship at Tufts University (and named to Forbes' 2022 "50 Over 50" list). Julianne sees first-hand how immigrants collaborate with the U.S.-born to create meaningful inventions that solve real problems - but how rhetoric, policy, and an outdated system can shut them out. Julianne now heads a firm that invests solely in companies led and controlled by Black, Indigenous, people of color and female founders. She discusses why she believes it is crucial that we work together to bring about much-needed social and economic change, and resist efforts to close ourselves off - as you’ll hear in this week’s JobMakers.

Guest:

Julianne Zimmerman is Managing Director of Reinventure Capital, which invests in U.S.-based companies led by people of color and/or women. For over 25 years, she has been putting technology and capital to work for the greater good in the US and abroad. Along the way she has contributed in a variety of roles: Co-Founder of a seed-stage investment firm; VP of Communications at a utility-scale energy storage company; Co-founder and Director of Business Development of a biofuel company; VP of Engineering at a water purification company; and trusted mentor, board member, advisor, or consultant to many more. She invests heavily in cultivating community, including as a mentor with the MIT Venture Mentoring Service and life deacon in her church; she created and teaches a top-rated course on Innovative Social Enterprises at Tufts University. Julianne speaks and writes for a wide variety of domestic and global audiences. She earned two undergraduate degrees from MIT (Aero/Astro Engineering and Literature / Humanities), an MS from the University of Maryland, and an executive certificate in sustainability management from the Presidio Graduate School. She previously volunteered as a certified Emergency Medical Technician in Maryland (PGFD 1) and Massachusetts (Boston Marathon finish line medical services); she served as a research diver at the University of Maryland Space Systems Laboratory. She was twice a finalist in the NASA astronaut selection process and a 2020 Conscious Company World Changing Woman.