SAN FRANCISCO, CA – The National Venture Capital Association (NVCA) today presented Scott Sandell with the 2019 Outstanding Service Award at the 2019 NVCA Leadership Gala. Held at the Four Seasons in San Francisco, CA, the NVCA Leadership Gala celebrates the venture industry and honors those who have made significant contributions to foster innovation, advance technology and drive new company formation. 

“It should not be a surprise that Scott Sandell is receiving this year’s Outstanding Service Award, considering the magnitude of his efforts to drive positive change and his personal commitment to the industry,” said Bobby Franklin. “As a previous Chairman of NVCA, Scott was instrumental in diversifying NVCA’s Board of Directors, creating the Diversity Task Force, and making sure NVCA prioritized diversity in the VC ecosystem. Even after leaving the board, Scott has devoted considerable time and effort to developing relationships with members of Congress on both sides of the aisle in pursuit of public policy that advances the venture and startup ecosystem. We congratulate Scott for his well-deserved recognition and thank him for his outstanding contributions to our industry.”

Scott Sandell is Managing General Partner at NEA. A General Partner since 2000, and Co-Managing General Partner from 2015 – 2017, Scott served as head of the firm’s technology investing practice for 10 years and has led NEA’s China investing activities for over a decade. Since joining the firm in 1996, he has personally led investments in industry-transforming companies like Bloom Energy, Data Domain, Fusion-io, Salesforce.com, Tableau Software, WebEx, and Workday. Scott is one of only four investors named to the Forbes Midas List every year since 2007, with 24 technology companies in his portfolio having successfully completed public offerings or mergers.

Scott is currently a director of Bloom Energy (NYSE: BE) and a number of private companies including Automation Anywhere, Branch, Cloudflare, Coursera, Enigma, Expanse (fka Qadium), Hello Alfred, One Concern, Robinhood, Sentons, Transfix, and WaterBit. Other previous investments include Fusion-io (acquired by SanDisk), Neoteris (acquired by Juniper Networks), NetIQ (acquired by Attachmate Corporation), Playdom (acquired by Disney), and Spreadtrum Communications (acquired by Tsinghua Unigroup).

Prior to joining NEA, Scott was a Product Manager at Microsoft, where he worked on Windows 95. Before joining Microsoft, Scott was the first salesperson at C-ATS Software and later co-founded and ran the company’s European subsidiary. He began his career at the Boston Consulting Group. Scott holds an MBA from Stanford and an AB in Engineering Sciences from Dartmouth College.

Scott also serves on the Board of Advisors for the Thayer School of Engineering at Dartmouth and is a former Chairman of the National Venture Capital Association (NVCA) (2014-2015).

About the Outstanding Service Award

The Outstanding Service Award recognizes the exceptional service of an NVCA Director or NVCA member who has committed an extraordinary amount of time, resources and dedication to Association efforts that in turn benefits the entire venture industry. The dedication has raised the visibility of the industry to key legislators and regulators and helped to educate them regarding the pivotal role of venture capital to this economy.

Previous recipients: Ira Ehrenpreis, Ross Jaffe, Diana Frazier, Josh Green, Kate Mitchell, Steve Frederick, Ted Schlein, Warburg Pincus, Jack Lasersohn, Sarah Reed, John Martinson, Robert Pavey, Rodney Goldstein, E. Roe Stamps, M. Kathleen Behrens, Steven Lazarus, Harry T. Rein, Patricia Cloherty, John Doerr and Christopher Brody.