Welcoming Jessica Straus to the NVCA Team

I’m excited to announce that this week NVCA welcomed the newest member of our team, Jessica Straus, who joins the association as the Manager of Communications. April 28th marked her first day on the job and we look forward to having Jessica on the ground with us in San Francisco in a couple weeks for NVCA’s annual meeting, VentureScape 2014.

As part of the NVCA’s communications team, Jessica will work with the media to highlight the role venture capital plays in driving innovation across the U.S., manage NVCA’s social media platforms and other online assets, and coordinate communications with our incredible members in the VC community.

Jessica spent the last year working as an independent consultant on a variety of projects for a diverse client portfolio, including leading strategic partnership and communications for the Capital UnConference, an event very similar to our own Office Hours program at VentureScape.  In addition, she worked with early-stage real estate, education technology and crowdsourced consulting companies.

Before becoming a consultant, Jessica worked in communications for SocialFlow, a venture-backed startup in New York where she played a key role in marketing new products and highlighting successes delivered for Fortune 500s.  Prior to setting off for the startup world, Jessica worked in a variety of communications roles on Capitol Hill, most recently as Deputy Press Secretary for House Majority Leader Eric Cantor.

Jessica truly understands the geographic diversity of the startup ecosystem and the opportunity for disruption that exists across the country, especially in America’s small and mid-sized cities.  Last year, she volunteered her time to help launch the Millennial Trains Project, a non-profit that leads transcontinental train journeys for young innovators.  In this role, she helped lead 24 next-generation entrepreneurs to explore incubators, new technologies, pro-innovation policies and public projects emerging in San Francisco, Salt Lake City, Denver, Omaha, Chicago, Pittsburgh and Washington, DC.

Passion, enthusiasm and unrivaled experience, Jessica is the complete package.  We are fortunate to have her on the team.