Contributor Interview Series Episode 1: Rose Vitale

Meet Rose Vitale, the man­ag­ing part­ner at DRA Fam­i­ly Office, bring­ing over a decade of finance exper­tise. Renowned for her advo­ca­cy for inclu­siv­i­ty and women in busi­ness, Rose spear­heads ini­tia­tives like Fund­Her World Cap­i­tal, empow­er­ing women-led busi­ness­es. She hosts a finance pod­cast ampli­fy­ing diverse voic­es and cham­pi­ons invest­ment in under­rep­re­sent­ed entre­pre­neurs. Get ready to delve into her insights and expe­ri­ences in our exclu­sive interview.

Here’s the Inter­view between the May­bach Foun­da­tion (MF) and Rose Vitale (RV):

MF: Con­grat­u­la­tions on being hon­ored with the 2023 Inspi­ra­tional Women Forum & Lead­er­ship Award!

MF: How does it feel to be rec­og­nized for your work in advanc­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties for women entre­pre­neurs and leaders?

RV: I feel very hon­ored and grate­ful for the recog­ni­tion. This work is not as easy as some peo­ple think it is. As I have learned, invest­ing in female entre­pre­neurs is not a trans­ac­tion­al process. It’s a peo­ple dri­ven process, and you have to take the time to get know the founders. As the old say­ing goes, busi­ness­es don’t suc­ceed — Peo­ple do.

MF: Can you share more about the ini­tia­tives you’ve spear­head­ed in the past two years, such as Fund­Her World Cap­i­tal and your pod­cast focused on women in finance?

RV: As a pri­vate investor, I have often dis­cov­ered that female founders need more than cap­i­tal. So many times, I meet an amaz­ing founder with a great idea… but they need a cer­tain amount of guid­ance to get from where they are to where they need to be. They need resources and tools, such as help with account­ing and oper­a­tions man­age­ment. In some cas­es, cap­i­tal is the least of the val­ue we pro­vide to a port­fo­lio ven­ture. Regard­ing the pod­cast, it’s been a great oppor­tu­ni­ty to get to know some fas­ci­nat­ing female founders on a per­son­al lev­el — and from there, dis­cuss some of the impor­tant nuts and bolts aspects of financ­ing and invest­ment vehi­cles, things like equi­ty ver­sus debt, deal struc­tures, and so forth.

MF: As a suc­cess­ful investor and ser­i­al entre­pre­neur, your­self, what are some of the key chal­lenges you’ve observed female entre­pre­neurs face in secur­ing capital?

RV: One word: knowl­edge. Female entre­pre­neurs tend to need knowl­edge about a wide vari­ety of things, includ­ing how to go about rais­ing cap­i­tal, along with the many spe­cif­ic process­es that go along with launch­ing a new ven­ture. Term sheets can be chal­leng­ing, as well as the spe­cial­ized lin­go that you have in the world of invest­ing, which has lit­tle to do with get­ting a suc­cess­ful busi­ness of the ground. The risk is that a founder becomes a pro­fes­sion­al cap­i­tal rais­er and then miss­es learn­ing about the things they real­ly need to know to suc­ceed, like gen­er­at­ing rev­enue and man­ag­ing operations.

MF: Can you share a bit about your jour­ney in the invest­ment world and how it led you to sup­port female founders?

RV: My jour­ney has been along two paths. One is as an investor. I see great untapped poten­tial, with no one going after it. With 2% of cap­i­tal allo­cat­ed to female founders, there’s a lot of amaz­ing busi­ness­es being neglect­ed by investors. My oth­er path in the invest­ment world involves being a woman, which means becom­ing able to see mas­sive opportunities.

MF: What role do you believe men­tor­ship plays in the suc­cess of entre­pre­neurs, and have you per­son­al­ly ben­e­fit­ed from men­tor­ship through­out your career?

RV: Men­tor­ship is crit­i­cal. For my whole life, I want­ed to be an entre­pre­neur. My par­ents were not entre­pre­neurs, so I had no idea what was real­ly involved. When I was 17, I met a gen­tle­man who had built a suc­cess­ful paint­ing com­pa­ny. He went door to door paint­ing homes in the DC area. He taught me every­thing about sales and how he went about it. I learned from him, about things like build­ing trust with cus­tomers. He was one of my first and most impor­tant men­tors. Then, when I was in my twen­ties, I worked for Alan Turn­er at Papa Johns Piz­za. He taught me about man­age­ment. In busi­ness it’s man­age­ment, man­age­ment, man­age­ment, à la real estate. In my case, my part­ner was the good man­ag­er. I was more of the vision­ary. But, I’m still glad I was men­tored in management.

MF: May­bach has a deep his­to­ry inspir­ing auto­mo­bile and also rac­ing. What are your inter­ests in this field and how are you involved?

RV: Well, I will say that at one point, I was look­ing at buy­ing the W Series all-women For­mu­la 1 team. So, you can see how much I love cars. I’m a big For­mu­la 1 fan, that’s for sure. If there are oppor­tu­ni­ties where busi­ness and pas­sion meet, I’m there. And, being from Detroit, cars are in my blood. I come from a Ford fam­i­ly. My grand­fa­ther worked on the line. My father worked at Ford, too. I even worked at a Ford assem­bly plant when I was 19, but I got fired. I love for­eign cars, dri­ving a Z3 BMW when I was 17.

MF: We’re thrilled to have you as part of the May­bach Foun­da­tion com­mu­ni­ty, and we are very grate­ful for your last two years of sup­port. Can you share a mem­o­rable expe­ri­ence from your involve­ment with May­bach Foun­da­tion that has left a last­ing impres­sion on you?

RV: One of most sig­nif­i­cant impres­sions I formed when I became involved with the May­bach Foun­da­tion had to do with Uli, and every time he has a pan­el, he always invites women. He’s very sup­port­ive of women. I took note of that. One of the rea­sons I am a sup­port­er of the foun­da­tion is that it feels like fam­i­ly to me. Every time I go back there, every­one seems to know you. I like that fam­i­ly feeling.

MF: What are your per­son­al hopes for the future of men­tor­ing and what is your advice and key mes­sage for young entre­pre­neurs espe­cial­ly young women?

RV: My per­son­al hope is that I will have suc­cess in build­ing out the Female Founders Insti­tute where I can men­tor women and pro­vide oppor­tu­ni­ties for them in some capac­i­ty. My mes­sage is this: As an entre­pre­neur, you can have your best day and your worst day on the same day – be ready for that.

MF: Is there any­thing else you would like to share with our com­mu­ni­ty giv­ing hope and inspiration?

RV: It’s an excit­ing time to be an entre­pre­neur in the US right now. I don’t care what any­one says about the econ­o­my or this or that… if you have an idea and you’re will­ing to do the work, you’ll be amazed at what you can accomplish.