Jerry Colonna is an American venture capitalist and professional coach who played a prominent part in the early development of Silicon Valley. He is the recipient of numerous awards and a speaker on topics ranging from leadership to starting businesses. Colonna has been named to Upside magazine's list of the 100 Most Influential People of the New Economy, Forbes ASAP's list of the best VCs in the country, and Worths list of the 25 most generous young Americans. He is a co-founder and CEO of the executive coaching and leadership development company, . He is the host of the Reboot Podcast. He also serves as chairman on the Board of Trustees at Naropa University. Colonna is the author of Reboot: Leadership and the Art of Growing Up.
Early life
Colonna was raised in Brooklyn. He was 11 years old when his father, a proofreader for a typesetting company, lost his longtime job as computers entered the printing business. After graduating from Edward R. Murrow High School Colonna worked to put himself through Queens College, and was just about to withdraw because he could not afford the tuition when a professor found him a scholarship that included an internship at CMP Media, publisher of Information Week. Colonna went on to graduate with a B.A. in English Literature.
Career
Having taken on the internship, Colonna soon became a success at CMP Media Inc., and by the age of 25 was editor, going on to found the company's interactive group. He left CMP to join his first venture firm, CMG@Ventures L.P., in 1995 as a founding partner. CMG@Ventures L.P. was the first Internet-specific venture firm, and began with a funding pool of $35 million. With his partner, Fred Wilson, Jerry launched Flatiron Partners in August 1996. Flatiron became one of the most successful, investment programs in the New York City area, growing into an investment fund that focused primarily on follow-on investing, with investments in notable dot-com bubble successes and failures, including Alacra, comScore Networks, Yoyodyne, GeoCities, Kozmo.com, New York Times Digital, PlanetOut, Return Path, Gamesville Inc, Scout electromedia, Standard Media International, Starmedia, and VitaminShoppe.com. The firm's 1996 fund capitalized at $150 million with two investors: SOFTBANK Technology Ventures and Chase Capital Partners, the private-equity arm of Chase Manhattan Corp. The firm later raised another fund capitalized at $500 million with Chase Capital Partners as the sole active LP. On July 2, 2001, Colonna was named to the Advisory Board of Silicon Alley Entrepreneurs Club. In 2001 Colonna and Wilson shut down Flatiron. After the 9/11 attacks, Colonna worked with the Partnership for New York City to launch the Financial Recovery Fund, an $11 million grant- and loan-making fund set up to help small businesses impacted by the attacks and the subsequent economic difficulties in Lower Manhattan. In 2002, Colonna became a partner with J.P. Morgan Partners, the private-equity arm of JP Morgan Chase where he led the firm’s investments in companies such as ProfitLogic. Colonna served as a director at ProfitLogic until its purchase by Oracle. In January 2002, he was named co-Executive Director of NYC2012, an organization representing New York City in the competition to host the 2012 Olympic Games. In that year, he helped raise more than $6 million to further those efforts. In 2003, along with Sarah Holloway, Jerry launched Hudson Heights Partners. Hudson Heights Partners was a start up consulting company for non-profit organizations seeking assistance with strategy, growth, fundraising and management. After working at JPMorgan, Colonna became a business and life coach, serving entrepreneurs and CEOs and in 2007 launched his professional coaching practice. He is currently the CEO of Reboot.io, a coaching company in New York, Boulder, San Francisco. Through his coaching practice, he has continued to be active in tech startup community through both private and group coaching sessions and through many public speaking engagements and he has coached many startup founders, including Dennis Crowley at Foursquare. Since 2007, Colonna has continued to make investments in startup companies on a limited scale. His investments have included Twitter and Nestio. In 2019, Colonna published Reboot: Leadership and the Art of Growing Up.
Views
In his role as a professional coach, Colonna is often known for his unique teachings on entrepreneurship and business psychology. The 'Crucible of Leadership' is a concept allowing leaders to embrace extreme challenges and taking time to discover the 'self' through introspection.
