Page 0 2015 Latin American Venture Capital & Private Equity Academy DRAFT SCHEDULE ANN LEAMON AND JOSH LERNER
Page 1 The Latin American Venture Capital & Private Equity Academy This two-day session is geared toward the general partners in the venture capital and private equity funds of Colombia and LATAM, and also to the limited partners that invest in such operations. Its primary goal is to provide a platform in which the participants can share ideas and learn from the presenters and each other. In addition to building skills, it is also hoped that attendees will provide important feedback to public policy makers about ways in which the venture capital and private equity ecosystems can be improved. The first day explores questions of context, ranging from programs to encourage deal flow through firm management issues, including best practices in LP/GP relations and reporting. The day concludes with a series of break-outs in which participants discuss different aspects of the private equity and venture capital ecosystem and ways in which they could be improved. After the groups present their conclusions, the attendees can adjourn to a networking cocktail session. On the second day, we consider aspects of deal choice and management. We begin by examining the ways in which firms can create value, and then move into questions of deal choice and due diligence. Attendees will even play the role of a venture capitalist by choosing among deal options and creating a value addition plan for the chosen investment. By the end of the two days, we hope that the attendees have a broader understanding of the context in which venture capital and private equity investment takes place; the issues faced by other groups in the ecosystem; and an increased familiarity with such issues as firm strategy, methods of value creation, and approaches to deal choice and due diligence. Such understanding can help not just the general partners, by expanding their skills, but also the limited partners who must assess the general partners in executing such tasks.
Page 2 Schedule Day 1: The Context of Private Equity: Policy, Best Practices, and Firm Administration 8:00AM -9:00: Registration, coffee, networking. 9:00AM 9:15: Welcome and Introduction 9:15AM -10:30: Start-Up Chile case This case explores Chile s program aimed at encouraging innovation in its citizens. What do you think of the program? What aspects would you change to make it more applicable to Colombia or other LATAM countries? How would you measure its success? How does Start-Up Chile compare to INNpulsa and other LATAM programs? 10:30AM 10:45: Break 10:45AM 12:00PM: Interactive Lecture on Best Practices in LP and GP Relations This interactive discussion will explore the evolving concerns of LPs and GPs. What forces are driving LPs and how can GPs best respond to those concerns? For the LPs in the audience, what are best practices in terms of their own relationships with GPs? How do they choose the right GPs? How are situations different in LATAM? 12:00PM 1:00 Networking Lunch 1:00PM 2:15: Fund Management Vignettes Following on the heels of the Best Practices discussion, this set of small cases presents specific issues that fund managers may confront with respect to working with their limited partners. Have you encountered similar situations? How have you resolved them? 2:15PM 2:45: Interactive Discussion on Long Term Investments in a Short Term World After the LPs have done due diligence on a fund and committed to it, the GPs invest in a series of companies and report to the LPs on their performance. Although private equity is a long-term asset class, the metrics used to report on it tend to be short-term in nature. We will explore the tensions posed by this difference and consider ways to resolve it. How might the approaches vary depending on the LATAM country in which the fund is operating? 2:45PM 3:00: Break 3:00PM 4:30: Break Out Groups The attendees will break into smaller groups to discuss the challenges they confront in expanding the VC and private equity industry in Colombia, and how they might be resolved. After their discussion, they will reconvene to share their perspectives.
Page 3 4:30PM 5:00: Wrap Up 5:00PM 6:30: Reception
Page 4 Day 2: Limited and General Partners Creating Value and Due Diligence During this day, we will explore more detailed topics that are of concern to both limited and general partners due diligence and value creation. The first part of the day will focus on a firm s strategy and then move into considering how a firm adds value to its investments. After lunch, we will explore the process of choosing an investment and the way an investment firm would think about creating value in its deal. 9:00AM 9:15: Recap of key lessons from Day One; introduction to Day Two. 9:15AM 10:15: Firm Strategy Vignettes Before a firm starts seeking deals, it must understand its own strategy. Some firms are comfortable simply doing any deal that comes over the transom but increasing, LPs are insisting that a firm has a clear strategy. 10:15AM 10:45: Break 10:45AM 12:00PM: Blackstone s Investment in Intelenet This case describes the situation in which Blackstone found itself with respect to one of its largest investments in India. The contract with its largest customer was about to expire, which would result in the transfer of all of Intelenet s assets and staff involved in the account to the customer. Blackstone must decide how to respond to this situation should it invest in renewing the contract or on recruiting other customers? The firm s response to this question will greatly determine the value that it will be able to create. 12:00PM 1:30: Networking Lunch In the afternoon session, we will combine the previous topics as we explore assessing a deal. 1:30PM 3:30: Breakouts: Martin Smith: July 2012 case Choosing, Diligencing, and Creating Value in an Investment In this session, the participants will explore concepts of due diligence, deal choice, and value creation. They will break into small groups to consider three possible investments that Martin Smith, a new partner at a Latin American VC firm, might recommend to his partners. After considering these options, the groups will reconvene and present their recommendations along with a list of the actions that would be necessary to create value in the company. 3:30PM 3:45 Break 3:45PM 4:30: Final Thoughts and Wrap-Up This session will present the themes of the past two days and wrap up the program.
Page 5 Faculty: Professor Josh Lerner Josh Lerner is the Jacob H. Schiff Professor of Investment Banking at Harvard Business School, and chair of the Entrepreneurial Management unit. He graduated from Yale College with a special divisional major that combined physics with the history of technology. He worked for several years on issues concerning technological innovation and public policy at the Brookings Institution, for a public-private task force in Chicago, and on Capitol Hill. He then earned a Ph.D. from Harvard's Economics Department. Much of his research focuses on the structure and role of venture capital and private equity organizations. (This research is collected in three books, The Venture Capital Cycle, The Money of Invention, and Boulevard of Broken Dreams.) He also examines policies on innovation and how they impact firm strategies. (That research is discussed in the books Innovation and Its Discontents, The Comingled Code, and the Architecture of Innovation.) He co-directs the National Bureau of Economic Research s Productivity, Innovation, and Entrepreneurship Program and serves as co-editor of their publication, Innovation Policy and the Economy. He founded and runs the Private Capital Research Institute, a nonprofit devoted to encouraging access to data and research about venture capital and private equity. In the 1993-1994 academic year, he introduced an elective course for second-year MBAs. Over the past two decades, Venture Capital and Private Equity has consistently been one of the largest elective courses at Harvard Business School. (The course materials are collected in Venture Capital and Private Equity: A Casebook, now in its fifth edition, and the textbook Venture Capital, Private Equity, and the Financing of Entrepreneurship.) He also teaches a doctoral course on entrepreneurship and chairs the Owners-Presidents- Managers Program and executive courses on private equity. Among other recognitions, he is the winner of the Swedish government s 2010 Global Entrepreneurship Research Award. He has recently been named one of the 100 most influential people in private equity over the past decade by Private Equity International magazine and one of the ten most influential academics in the institutional investing world by Asset International's Chief Investment Officer magazine. He currently serves as vice chair of the World Economic Forum s Global Agenda Council on the Future of Investing.