Tesla chair Denholm joins Blackbird

The Australian executive has gone from reining in Elon Musk and managing Telstra’s money, to building Australia’s fast-growing tech start-ups.

Blackbird partner and Tesla chair Robyn Denholm. Source: Supplied.

Tesla chair Robyn Denholm has joined Atlassian-linked venture capital outfit Blackbird Ventures as an operating partner, taking on the role following stints at Toyota, Juniper Networks and Telstra which she served as chief financial officer.

Ms Denholm, who will continue to serve on Tesla‘s board alongside chief executive Elon Musk, will become Blackbird’s sixth partner, helping build out Australia and New Zealand’s start-up ecosystems.

Blackbird is the major backer of so-called tech “unicorns” Canva, Zoox, SafetyCulture and Culture Amp, as well as potential future unicorns like Propeller, Baraja, Gilmour Space, Proxy, Harrison AI, and nura which are each worth over $100m.

“On a personal level, Robyn is already helping some of our late-stage companies reach their potential. She is going deep with a handful of our later stage companies, particularly companies that are at an inflection point of growing their teams to hundreds of people,” the company said in a blog post.

“She is helping them design operating systems, plan and hire senior executive teams, build culture at scale, manage partnerships, and much more. Her huge experience in this area is already shining through.”

The executive joined Tesla’s board in 2014 and has been at the tech giant throughout its meteoric rise to become one of the world’s most valuable companies.

“I have been tremendously fortunate to work with phenomenal people and world class organisations” Ms Denholm said in a statement.

Tesla Chairwoman Robyn Denholm, speaking in Melbourne. Stuart McEvoy/The Australian.

“In this next phase, I want to pay it forward and help growing Australian and New Zealand technology companies succeed on the global stage.

“As I’ve become more involved in the ANZ start-up landscape over the last couple of years, I’ve been blown away by the ambition of our local founders, and the quality of ideas and talent. Now, we need to develop the operating capability for these companies to continue to take on the world.

“I’m excited to help Blackbird put that operating ecosystem in place for these companies to achieve their full potential.”

In a prior interview with The Australian, Ms Denholm said one thread throughout her entire career had been connectivity, whether that be ­between people or through ­technology, and she was naturally drawn to transformative organisations.

“I really enjoy being on the Tesla board,” she said. “My whole life and career, for 30 years, has been about connectivity. Whether that’s been working with Toyota in Australia, on the networking side with Juniper or on the board of (Swedish company) ABB.

Ms Denholm, who holds a bachelor’s degree in economics from the University of Sydney and a master’s degree in commerce from University of NSW, pointed to her years with Toyota where she served in various ­finance roles, as formative for working productively with engineers and how to get the most out of them.

“I don’t care what people look like. If everybody thinks the same way they won’t create the next wave of innovation. They need differences of opinion and differences in life experiences,” she said.

Last year Blackbird Ventures defied the COVID-19 pandemic to raise a $652m fund, led by local superannuation heavyweights including AustralianSuper, Hesta, the Future Fund, Telstra Super and more.

The venture capital outfit, which owns a 14 per cent stake in Canva — more than any other investor — is now the largest in Australia, having committed more than $1.4bn in funds to date.

"Our ambition at Blackbird is to not only find and back the best startups but to be a generational owner from the very first round of capital and through every stage of their journey,” Blackbird co-founder and Partner Niki Scevak said.

“Through working directly with our late-stage companies and pioneering products and programs to pass on her knowledge to the whole ecosystem, Robyn will play a profound role in how we achieve our ambition."

Blackbird chief executive Rick Baker said Ms Denholm would be a perfect fit for the Blackbird team.

“Robyn has a knack of speaking to senior teams, and working out what they need to do to get to improve management, decision making and communication,” he said.

“It’s been amazing to see how she suggests practical solutions to these notoriously imprecise problems."