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C T I N N O V A T O R S , 2 0 2 2 3 7 L A MON T ANNIE Smart Bets First Lady Lamont emerges as one of U.S.' top healthcare venture investors >> BY NORMAN BELL Annie Lamont, powerhouse venture capitalist and first lady of Connecticut, is clear about what she is not: "I am not an entrepreneur." Rather, she says, she helps entrepreneurs realize their visions. She has many tools, including mentoring, networking, managing, staffing, directing, funding, cajoling and recognizing when to exit. She's been stunningly effective in this en- trepreneur-adjacent role. She's appeared on the New York Times' list of the Top 100 Ven- ture Capitalists and a similar list prepared by CB Insights. She spent years on the Forbes Midas List, including time as the nation's top life science investor. She was the first recipient of the National Venture Capital Association's Award for Excellence in Healthcare Innovation and was presented with the Healthcare Private Equity Association's Russell L. Carson Award for Lifetime Achievement in Healthcare Investing. But none of this was what Ann Huntress envisioned when she le small-town Wis- consin for Stanford University. Growing up Lamont is the youngest of six children and grew up as "a big fish in a little pond." As a straight-A student, she had many options and admits choosing Stanford for all the wrong reasons. She was looking for fun in the sun. She majored in political science with an eye toward law school. "I loved Perry Mason," she recalls. e ride hit an unexpected bump when her father, a real estate broker, became ill. "In his business, he ate what he killed," she explains. When he couldn't work, funds dried up. Aer her junior year, she had to come home and go to work. e experience "made me grow up," she recalls. Money materialized the next year and she went back to Stan- ford. It wasn't until much later that Lamont learned the money came from her father cashing in his life insurance policy. She took her bachelor's degree and went to work for a law firm. She recalls spending six months working on the case of a guilty client and quickly recognized she was on the wrong track. It wasn't a complete loss. She worked with engineers developing what would become the first computerized litigation file system and found she liked that kind of challenge. Exciting new opportunities were close at hand. What was hap- pening just off campus was changing the world. Silicon Valley was in its infancy. New industries were developing computers, chips and soware. And venture capitalists were raising funds. She found a job as a research associate with investment bank Hambrecht & Quist and is fond of telling the story of carrying Steve Jobs' bags as he made presentations to would-be investors. "Meeting him changed my life," she says. ese were heady days. Her firm was handling the initial pub- lic offerings of soon-to-be-giants Apple and Genentech. She was hooked. One of the skills she quickly mastered was networking and it led her to a job across the country, as a research associate with Oak Investment Partners in Westport. at was 1982. A year later she married Ned Lamont, great-grandson of J.P. Morgan & Co. chair- man omas Lamont. e Harvard- and Yale-educated future governor was build- ing a cable television firm in southern Connecticut before turning his attention to politics. Annie Lamont worked her way up the ladder and became managing partner at Oak Investment Partners, which has invest- ed $9 billion in more than 500 companies. Along the way, she amassed a multimil- lion-dollar fortune that allowed her to help underwrite her husband's statewide elec- toral races for U.S. Senate and governor. In 2014, she became a co-founder of Oak HC/FT as a separate entity that retains an affiliation with Oak In- vestment Partners. As the name suggests, the investment focus is squarely on health care and fintech. Higher quality, lower cost In broad terms, Lamont said investment decisions start with the leadership of a prospect company followed by the business plan, technology and market positioning. Health care has been a personal focus of Lamont's, inspired and informed by her father's illness. She describes a straight-forward investor philosophy — "more access, higher quality, lower cost" — that leads her toward inno- vations in primary care. She points to VillageMD, a Chicago-based company in Oak HC/FT's portfolio. It is developing primary care practices adja- cent to Walgreens pharmacies. e focus is on results, which leads to placing a priority on better management of patient wellness. Physicians spend more time with patients and actively coordi- nate care. Specialists are chosen based on their value and are not limited by networks. An emphasis on testing allows intervention in the early stages of diseases when care can be delivered at home rather than in an expensive hospital setting. Over the next few years, VillageMD plans to open 1,000 new clinics, half in underserved communities. Clinics are open in 14 Annie Lamont Co-Founder & Managing Partner Oak HC/FT Education: Bachelor's degree in political science, Stanford University Age: 66 Continued on next page