Jes Wolfe

Jes Wolfe is a San Francisco–based operator, executive, and angel investor. She holds a bachelor's degree in Economics and Political Science from the University of California, Berkeley, and an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business. She spent roughly the first 16 years of her career living and working internationally — across five continents and some 25 countries — in strategy and finance roles at Morgan Stanley, the Boston Consulting Group, the International Finance Corporation (part of the World Bank Group), GridPoint, and the Algeco Scotsman Group, spanning investment banking, management consulting, development finance, and private equity portfolio companies.

She later became Chief Operating Officer at Hoodline, the hyper-local media-technology company, which grew to about 30 employees before being acquired by Nextdoor. Her continued association with Hoodline is reflected in her [hidden] contact address. She is also a founding member of Chief, the private executive network for women leaders.

Since April 2020, Wolfe has served as CEO of Rebel Girls, the global, multi-platform girl-empowerment brand (she first joined its board in 2019). Under her leadership, Rebel Girls has sold more than 10 million books across 50 languages and 110+ countries, its audio stories have drawn tens of millions of listens, and its app won the 2022 Apple Design Award for Social Impact. She has spoken at industry events including the Kidscreen Summit (2022, 2023), is a YPO member (joined 2021), and has served as Chairwoman of LOVB SF.

In parallel with her operating career, Wolfe invests her own capital as an angel, building a portfolio of more than a dozen startups, every one of which includes a woman on the founding team.

• Invests exclusively in women-led ventures — her stated criterion is that every company she backs has a woman on the founding team.
• Backs both companies and funds, deploying personal capital as an angel rather than from an institutional fund.
• Early-stage / seed investments in exchange for equity.
• Sector tilt toward consumer, food & beverage, and women's health — reflected in a portfolio of consumer brands and femtech.
• Operator's lens: her self-described areas of expertise are strategy, customer acquisition, distribution, fundraising, voice-of-customer, and financial modeling — areas where she can add value beyond capital.
• On her operating philosophy (a tell for how she thinks about bets): *"Control is an illusion. The more I can get comfortable with the need to be nimble, and not get too hung up about any one plan, the more adept we become as a company."*