User Profile

Founder and Managing Partner, GSV Acceleration Fund

Deborah is the Founder and Managing Partner of GSV Acceleration, a venture capital fund investing in great entrepreneurs and their companies in the $75B education and talent technology sector. The GSV Accelerlation portfolio of 26 companies includes Andela, Begin, CampusLogic, Clever, ClassDojo, Course Hero, Coursera, CreativeLive, Degreed, Educents, GuideOn, Handshake, HotChalk, Lightneer, MasterClass, MasteryConnect, Motimatic, Nearpod, NoRedInk, Pluralsight, Raise.me, Remind, TARA, Turnitin, Tynker, and Voxy. Deborah is also an active angel investor with over 21 holdings outside of the fund. In addition she is the co-founder of the ASU GSV Summit, an annual event, now in its 9th year, with over 3,500 in attendance, that celebrates innovations and innovators across the global “preK to Gray” learning and talent landscape. Previously Deborah founded GSV Advisors, a boutique advisory firm focused on education and human capital technology companies. She previously co-founded ThinkEquity Partners, a boutique technology focused investment bank, which was acquired in 2007 by a UK firm. Prior to that, she was a Managing Director in Investment Banking and head of the Global Growth Group at Merrill Lynch & Co. She began her career at J.P Morgan. Deborah currently serves on the boards of Degreed, Lightneer, Remind, and Web.com (NASDAQ: WWWW) and is a board observer at ClassDojo, CreativeLive, GuideOn, and Raise.me. She is a member of the boards of The Chicago Public Education Fund, The Common Ground Foundation, Harvey Mudd College, KIPP: Chicago, National Louis University, Steppenwolf Theatre Company, The Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation, The Board of Dean’s Advisors at Harvard Business School, and the Honorary Board of Marwen. She is a member of the Steering Committee of the Illinois Business Immigration Coalition. She previously served on the board of a number of education organizations including the Chicago Board of Education, America’s Promise Alliance, and Teach for America Chicago. Deborah has received the 2014 Arnold M. Berlin ’46 Distinguished Service to Princeton Award from the Princeton University Club of Chicago, the 2014 Visionary of the Year Award from CFY PowerMyLearning, the 2016 LEAP Innovator in Education "Champion" Award from LEAP Innovations, the 2016 Inaugural Impact Award from Golden Apple Foundation, and the 2017 Visionary Award from the Association of American Publishers (AAP) PreK-12 Learning Group. Deborah graduated cum laude with a BA in history from Princeton University in 1982 and an MBA from Harvard University 1987. She and her husband Stephen have three children Caroline, Benjamin, and Christopher.