Lockie Andrews is named Fashion Tech Sector Lead of the HBS Alumni Angels of New York
Interview regarding my new role as the Fashion Tech Sector Lead at the HBS Alumni Angels of Greater New York.
Sector Lead Profile: Lockie Andrews HBS Class of 2000
Why did you volunteer to be Fashion Sector Lead? What is your experience in this area?
My professional experience has been a blend of fashion and consumer, startup management, e-commerce/digital technologies and venture capital fundraising. Volunteering to be a Sector Lead felt like a natural extension of my skill set and interests. As the head of my own boutique consulting practice, I reserve 20% of my time to work with entrepreneurial ventures, and working in this volunteer capacity allows me to stay abreast of the cutting edge innovations in fashion and tech.
What benefit do you believe HBSAANY has on the startups they work with? Does this go beyond just funding?
The Harvard community at large offers a very deep and broad network that has proven quite valuable to our portfolio companies. We frequently tap into our network for strategic insights, research, expert opinions and talent to help management teams execute their vision and growth plans. We try to embody the definition of “smart money”. Many of our angels take seats on boards, serve as advisors or follow-up their personal investments with formal venture capital commitments at their funds.
What have you been working on so far within the fashion sector? What are you seeing that excites you?
Our primary goal is to build awareness about our investor group within the fashion tech community. In addition to growing our pipeline of high growth startups for pitch night, we want to formalize the fashion tech ecosystem in NYC. In the coming months we will announce meet-ups for fashion tech startup founders and investors, as well as collaborations with existing fashion tech clubs and the HBS Club of NY Business of Fashion series. I am personally excited about truly transformative concepts that address the major pain points of consumers and retailers. Fashion is one of the few industries to completely reinvent its product pipeline each season, however counter-intuitively, the industry has been a laggard in embracing technologies that modernize supply chain, operations and omni-channel retailing. HBSAANY looks forward to funding future innovations in fashion tech.
