BIF Board Member Ellen Levy Accepts Key Post at LinkedIn

Congratulations to BIF Board Member Ellen Levy who was just appointed Vice President of Corporate Development and Strategy at LinkedIn Corporation. In her new role, Ellen will play a critical role in overseeing business development, identifying and managing strategic partnerships and assessing new market opportunities.

Connecting the right people to the right ideas and opportunities has always been a passion of Ellen's and she has years of experience doing just that through her work with startups, large companies, venture capital firms, research labs and universities. I often relay a story she told me last year about how her enthusiasm for making connections evolved:

Back in 1999, in the midst of the Internet bubble, working first as an Internet startup executive, and then as a venture capitalist, Ellen also spent the entire year chronicling her life and taking pictures of everyone she met. She didn't miss an entry for 365 days, and ended up with a document nearly 3,000 pages long. She found, among other things, that it helped her create a true awareness of the relationships around her. "Ultimately, people are what matter," she told me. "The best connections usually aren't that obvious — I am constantly turning over rocks. The curiosity of what I might find is addictive. And when the connections result in something truly meaningful, it is incredibly gratifying."

Ellen has been very supportive of the Business Innovation Factory and our mission of enabling collaborative innovation. I know I speak for everyone here at when I say congratulations Ellen and best of luck in your new position.

Related
Read our story about Ellen called Living the Network Effect
See Ellen in action at last year's BIF-3 Summit
Read my blog recap from Ellen's workshop earlier this month Building Purposeful Networks: Are You a Dead Node?

Posted April 16, 2008 09:49 AM by Chris Flanagan | Permalink