Kara Egan

Kara earned her MBA from The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and her BS in management science and engineering from Stanford University. At Stanford, she was All-American and captain of the nationally ranked Stanford sailing team. 

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She is an avid traveler. Her more of adventurous travel'backpacking in Sapa, Vietnam or summiting Cotopaxi in Ecuador'has now shifted to beaches, lakes, and pools that she can enjoy with her 1 year old son.

Kara is on the Investment Team at Emergence Partners. She brings over 10 years of experience growing tech startups, as both an investor and operator. She's actively involved with the Emergence portfolio and is a board observer at UpKeep, Top Hat, and Zinc. 

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Kara's expertise is in B2B product and partner marketing from seed stage companies through to IPO. She joined Zendesk, prior to its going public, to help the company expand from upmarket from SMB to mid-market and enterprise companies. She successfully launched their enterprise product, with tight coordination between product, sales, customer success, and external telephony partners. 

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Before moving to the operating side, Kara blended her passion for venture and entrepreneurialism as the founding Associate of .406 Ventures. At .406, Kara played an integral role in launching the firm, raising the $170M fund, and driving the initial investments in SaaS, health IT, and security companies.

Kara is serving her fellowship at Emergence Capital as a member of Class 23. Her mentor is founding General Partner Jason Green (Charter Class, KF Board of Directors).