Workday Ventures Advances with Investments, Leadership

As 2020 kicks into full gear, Workday Ventures now has 21 portfolio companies, and the team is expanding with the addition of Betsy Bland and Erin Yang, Workday veterans with diverse experience across strategy, product management, and marketing for enterprise applications and platform technology.

 

It’s been just two years since we announced the $250 million Workday Ventures fund and great progress has been made on partnering with innovative companies working on technology solutions that enable enterprises to be faster, smarter, and more nimble. 

As 2020 kicks into full gear, Workday Ventures now has 21 portfolio companies, and the team is also expanding with the addition of Betsy Bland and Erin Yang, both of whom are Workday veterans with a diverse set of experience across strategy, product management, and marketing for enterprise applications and platform technology. 

Betsy joins Workday Ventures as vice president and managing director, and Erin as vice president and chief technologist. Both will work alongside current Workday Ventures leadership: Mark Peek, executive vice president and managing director, and Sarah Ospina, vice president and portfolio experience officer, who will have an expanded role as part of the investment team. As part of her new role, Sarah will assess how new portfolio solutions interact with Workday products, and then monitor and engage with partners to make sure they're connected to the right people inside Workday. 

Most recently, Betsy was a member of Workday’s Corporate Strategy team focused on financial and supply chain management, while also serving as an advisor to Workday Ventures. Betsy has always been passionate about early stage companies, innovation, and rooting for the entrepreneur. Her extensive operating experience across strategy, marketing, and product leadership will benefit portfolio companies as they scale and face challenges that Betsy has seen first hand as part of the Workday growth story.

At Workday, Erin both scaled a team and technology, growing Workday’s technology product management team over four years, as well as leading the Workday Cloud Platform (WCP) initiative, essentially a startup within an established organization. From both vantage points, she has broad insight into the needs of Workday customers, and how portfolio company solutions can innovate in those spaces. Her experience will help Workday Ventures assess new investments and guide the portfolio companies.

With the expanded team, Workday Ventures will be even better connected to the ecosystem of innovation happening outside of Workday. It will continue to identify innovation that best serves Workday customers while partnering with portfolio companies to help support their success. That’s a win on all fronts. 

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