The Team
Darryl brings more than forty years of experience as a private investor, venture capitalist, entrepreneur, investment banker, and strategic adviser across numerous industries. He co-founded Bennu Ventures Management and Ascend Ventures Management — two venture capital firms that collectively invested in more than 50 private companies over 20 years. Darryl is a Senior Advisor to Mack & Co. Partners, LP and a Venture Partner with Black Diamond Ventures. Darryl began his career at Peter J. Solomon Company and Goldman, Sachs & Co., and currently serves on the boards of Siirwl Inc., Cromtech, Inc., and Strateos, Inc. He holds a B.A. from the University of California, Berkeley, where he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa, and an M.B.A. from Stanford Graduate School of Business, where he was named an Arjay Miller Scholar.
Felicia brings extensive experience across venture capital, financial services, and start-up organizations, with a proven track record of driving business growth and operational excellence. She has led strategic initiatives, business planning, and compliance infrastructure across complex, high-growth environments, building scalable systems that increase organizational efficiency. Felicia began her career in financial services before transitioning to venture capital and executive leadership roles, developing deep expertise in finance, legal, and human resources. She earned a J.D. from the University of Virginia School of Law and a B.A. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Kylie brings more than 25 years of experience as an investor and financial leader across venture capital, financial services, media, and technology organizations. She co-invested alongside Darryl at Ascend Ventures Management, focusing on the For-Profit Education and Media sectors, and subsequently served as CFO of Frontier Payments, a pioneering point-of-sale and dispatch technology company supporting over 10,000 taxi drivers across 40 cities. Her career includes roles at PRIMEDIA Inc., a KKR-funded enterprise, RS1W, investment banking at Goldman, Sachs & Co. and Peter J. Solomon Company. She holds a B.A. in Economics from Georgetown University and an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School.
Susan brings two decades of experience building, scaling, and stabilizing enterprise people functions across high-growth, high-complexity, and transformational environments spanning venture capital, private equity, financial services, and Fortune 500 enterprises. She has served as Chief of Staff and CHRO to a private equity CEO, building HR and operations infrastructure to scale toward $1B in assets under management, and worked with Ascend Ventures, LLC. She has held global human capital and business operations roles of increasing responsibility at Fortune 500 companies including Sealed Air Corporation, BF Goodrich, Morgan Stanley, FMC, and Progressive Insurance. She brings the analytical rigor of a lawyer, the communication precision of a trained journalist, and a record of building enterprise infrastructure from the ground up. Susan earned a J.D. from Temple University, an M.S. in Journalism from Columbia University, and a B.A. from Spelman College.