Heidi Mason

Heidi Mason is the co-founder and Managing Director of The Bell-Mason Group which provides venture development strategy and tools to independent startups and corporate venture organizations. She also plays the role of Senior Advisor to a number of Fortune 500 corporations who are accessing innovation, new markets and new businesses through various venturing activities, having served corporations such as ChevronTexaco, CNA Insurance, Mitsubishi, and Eastman Chemical.

Heidi is also a Founding Partner of Building Bridges, dedicated to forming new types of mutually beneficial linkages between the Fortune 1000 and venture communities. A veteran of Silicon Valley, she has spent the last eight years building on her unique “bilingual” experience with both large companies and independent startups, working to build mutually beneficial bridges between these two worlds.

Since 2001 Heidi has been collaborating with Linda Yates, Tim Rohner and Mark Klopp to drive the practical cooperation of large companies with the venture community to the next level. Products of this collaboration include: the development of the February 2003 Building Bridges: A Summit for Key Corporate and Venture Leaders, co-sponsored by Stanford University and the National Venture Capital Association (NVCA); the subsequent design of the Corporate Venture Group, the corporate chapter of the NVCA, launched January 2004; and Strategic Venturing for Corporations, curriculum developed with Stanford’s School of Engineering and NVCA, launched June 2004.

Heidi has been immersed in new ventures in Silicon Valley for over 20 years, helping to build startup teams with vital business and marketing strategy and execution, as well as diagnosing and providing triage for those veering off course. Earlier, Heidi was co-founder and CEO of Acuity, a Silicon Valley technology marketing and communications consultancy; prior to that, she co-led Regis McKenna’s entry into technology marketing services. She also co-founded the successful publishing arm of Digital Equipment Corporation, where her collaboration began with computer pioneer Gordon Bell, Father of the VAX, now Senior Research Fellow with Microsoft. She and Bell created a first-of-kind venture development system, The Bell-Mason Diagnostic (BMD), a stage-gate framework that pioneered an objective means by which to evaluate early stage ventures. She also served as Fellow to management consulting firm DiamondCluster International.

Ms. Mason is co-author with Tim Rohner of The Venture Imperative: A New Model for Corporate Innovation (May 2002, Harvard Business School Press).

She holds a B. A., Phi Beta Kappa, from the University of Pennsylvania.

Heidi can be reached at heidi@bellmasongroup.com