August Featured People: Christina Lamontagne

August Featured People: Christina Lamontagne

Interview & Translation / Zhang Yuan

For this month’s PEOPLE we are delighted to introduce you to Christina LaMontagne，an early-stage investor for innovation in health and environmental sustainability. Her worldwide vison and ambiton impresses us as well the passion for China. When she was young, she developed expertise in HIV/AIDS prevention in China and other countries. Let’s have a word with this “China hand” on what she thinks of her career.

1. Hi Christina, let’s start with your past adventure first. As a Fulbright Scholar, you spent three years working across the public and private health care systems in China, and helped design and finance the Chinese government’s $67MHIV/AIDS treatment program for southwest China. How was this experience? And what was your discovery?

It was a privilege to win a Fulbright Scholarship, which has a mission to enhance inter-cultural exchange. My work with the Chinese government built upon research I did as an undergraduate at Dartmouth College. I worked for the International Cooperation division of the Chinese Center for Disease Control. I was the only foreigner in the office, so I had a great opportunity to learn from my Chinese colleagues and we bonded over games of ping pong and lots of cafeteria meals.

2 Could you tell us your personal experience working with the Chinese government in the HIV/AIDS treatment program? What was the major difficulty you had encountered? And have you heard anything from the program after you left?

I came to China to work on HIV/AIDS immediately following the SARS and Avian Flu epidemics in 2003. Prior to 2003, the Chinese government took a private, national approach to HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment. However, after the public health events of 2003, China invited collaboration with the WHO, UN, Clinton Foundation and other international organizations. You could say that as a young foreigner, I was in the right place at the right time.

In 2003, HIV/AIDS was still a very sensitive topic for many Chinese. I learned humility to approach a sensitive topic beyond my own cultural borders, teamwork to find novel ways to reach a shared goal, and appreciation for the Chinese way of doing things.

The project was approved by the Global Fund for TB, AIDS and Malaria in 2004 and was implemented in 2005 for a 5 year duration.

3 What brought you to work for HIV/AIDS policy and prevention in China? And why China?

From the time I was 14 or 15 I had a passion for HIV/AIDS prevention and a passion for China. My high school summer job was to help plan social events for people with HIV/AIDS in my hometown of Schenectady, NY. When I got to college, I started to read about how HIV/AIDS was spreading in China through the blood supply. At the time, I was studying Mandarin and I wondered if I could help somehow. In college I interned at the United National Development Program in Beijing and did my own field research around college students’ attitudes toward HIV/AIDS. When I finished college it felt natural to continue to work in this area.

4 Now you are currently working for Physic Ventures, can you explain a little about it? What is it? Who is it for? What do you do for it?

Physic Ventures in a venture capital firm based in San Francisco. We invest in health and environmental sustainability start-ups companies. I work hard to find the best start-ups with the highest potential to improve health and the environment. Then I research the market potential, leadership team, and business model of these companies and decide whether to invest. Physic Ventures usually looks at 1200 companies per year, but we only make about 4 investments each year – so it is tough work to find the best companies! After we make an investment, we help the companies to grow and to reach their full potential.

5 What led you in your career from an expert in HIV/AIDS prevention to a venture company investor?

After a few years of working on HIV/AIDS, I started to think about broader health issues globally and in the US. I decided to commit my career to trying to improve healthcare. When I went to get my MBA, I took every healthcare industry class available to me. I learned about the role of innovative companies in improving healthcare, and then I learned about the role of venture capitalists who took huge risks to ultimately bring new health products and services to market. Without these venture capitalists, many drugs, devices, and health technologies would have stayed in the medical lab, never really helping anyone. I have always been a curious person interested in changing the world – so I thought this would be a good job for me.

6 What do you think of the world today? Are you an optimist or pessimist as 2012 is coming real soon? And how you see the role of high-tech for changing our environment?

I am an optimist, although I see real troubles right now in my home country (the USA). Unfortunately we have been struggling with economic and political challenges for many years—but I still believe in the American dream and think the US has a unique culture which promotes a combination of innovation, meritocracy and cooperation that is hard to find elsewhere. I see China as a country with a great future and so much potential ahead. I first came to China in 1995, and it’s been one the greatest privileges of my life to see China evolve over the last 16 years.

One of the things I am looking forward to is a time when technology from China, India, and other emerging economies spreads more rapidly and comprehensively to the rest of the world. With the resources China has in terms of education, human talent, and cost structure, I see China as a sponsor of more and more innovation over time. For example, China’s mobile market is so large — sooner rather than later Apple and other US companies will take cues and build global strategy around what they learn in China.

As an investor and as an individual interested in China, I’m excited for this change to take place and I want to be a part of sharing Chinese innovation with the rest of the world.

7 Let’s talk a bit about Xindanwei. Why you choose here as your working space?

I looked at several corporate office rental for corporations but found them to lack the social aspect of XDW. From my perspective, business is often about relationships and learning from friends and colleagues. As I have limited time in China, I want to meet as many people as possible. A shared workspace like XDW offers so much more than a basic office rental where I might shut my door and never meet and learn from anyone near me!

Additionally, coming from San Francisco/Silicon Valley and working as an early-stage investor, I’m very familiar with the incubator model. Working at XDW with other creative and entrepreneurial minded people just feels more natural and authentic.

8 Anything else to tell our readers?

Through XDW, I hope to meet more people who are passionate about international business. In particular, I am interested in innovations from China that could benefit people around the world. There is such an opportunity ahead of us to share Chinese innovation and culture with the rest of the world. I often see more similarities between Shanghai and New York than I see between New York and Des Moines, Iowa or Between Beijing and Lhasa. Why not build a company together that targets the new generation in these global cities?

Review:

During the interview, I can not help having the feeling that our interviewee has a lucky streak, as things are always coming to her at the right time and the right place. It is lucky that one knows what his or her passion is at an early age, isn’t it? She agrees, but says it comes with a bit dedication and preparation. What do you think, guys? By the way, apart from working at Physic Ventures, Christina also has an interest in making her own personal investments. If you have some remarkable idea or innovation and wish to work with her, don’t wait! But bring a bit of dedication and preparation.

Bio

Christina LaMontagne is an early-stage investor at Physic Ventures, where she works across the firm’s interests in health and environmental sustainability and advises portfolio companies GoodGuide and Gazelle. She is particularly interested in web and mobile-enabled solutions for changing environmental and health-related behaviors. Christina’s professional experience spans marketing, strategy, operations and public policy. At Pfizer, Christina developed direct-to-consumer marketing strategies for a $700M brand. At Oliver Wyman, Christina was a strategy consultant to multi-national healthcare, consumer, and IT corporations both in the US and in China. Christina began her career in China, where as a Fulbright Scholar she helped design and finance the Chinese government’s $67M HIV/AIDS treatment program for southwest China. Christina holds an MBA from Harvard Business School and a BA with high honors from Dartmouth College, where she studied Mandarin Chinese.

About Physic Ventures:

http://www.physicventures.com/

About Fulbright Scholarship:

http://us.fulbrightonline.org/about.html

To Contact Christina LaMontagne:
christina.lamontagne@gmail.com

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