People are at the heart of every startup’s success and nobody knows the importance of recruiting the right talent more than today’s 40 Minute Mentor, Zoe Jervier Hewitt, Operating Partner for Talent at venture capitalists EQT Ventures. Zoe’s career started in HR and Talent at Apple before transitioning into Tech at the high growth Start Up Mind Candy. She then became one of the first employees at Entrepreneur First, where she built a global, talent acquisition and assessment function from scratch. After 4 very successful years at EF, Zoe joined the leading VC EQT Ventures as an Operating Partner where she acts as both an in-house Talent Advisor to the investment team and EQT’s portfolio. In today’s episode, we talk more about Zoe’s unusual route into the sector, having done a degree in History of Art at Oxford University, and we take a deeper look into her biggest learnings from her career so far, including: How growing up in a mixed race, working class family helped to instil in her a strong work ethic that has aided her throughout her career The importance of brand building and proactively searching for talent when you are a small start up Why a structured recruitment process is key to preventing biases creeping into your decision making Plus, her advice for those from underrepresented communities looking to raise investment from VC’s like EQT Zoe’s passion for developing talent really shines through in this episode and it was fascinating to get her perspective on recruitment in the Tech sector from someone who is a bona fide expert. We really enjoyed chatting to her about a topic we are particularly passionate about. So, if you’ve recently founded your own start up and are looking to expand your team, or you’re looking for advice on how to raise from a top VC like EQT, or perhaps you’re weighing up the benefits of a career in talent – whatever your situation, we're sure you will benefit from Zoe’s insightful advice. We’d love to hear your thoughts on this episode, so please get in touch at james@jbmc.co.uk If you’d like to find out more about Zoe, check out her LinkedIn profile – https://www.linkedin.com/in/zoejervier/ And if you want to get to know EQT Ventures a little better take a look at their website – https://eqtventures.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices