Nisha Desai is a 2017 Millennium fellow. She is also chief executive officer and founding general partner of Andav Capital, a top-quartile venture capital firm for early-stage tech-enabled companies with underdog founders. Under Desai’s leadership, Andav Capital has invested primarily in frictionless commerce, marketplaces, risk management, and enterprise software.

Desai is also investor-in-residence and an advisor to the Good Machine Studio, a deep tech venture capital studio backed by Schmidt Futures. Prior to her role leading Andav Capital, Desai was a director at Deutsche Bank, where she managed a firm-wide restructuring program, advised senior management and board members on multi-billion-dollar investments and complex cross-border deal structures, and represented the firm in industry and regulatory discussions.  Previously, Desai served as a vice president at J.P. Morgan, where she led a multi-year global antitrust remediation program pursuant to $225M Consent Orders, advised on restructuring the investment bank under Dodd-Frank, and was seconded to the CIO-losses “London Whale” Crisis Management Taskforce, where she also supported Jamie Dimon (chief executive officer J.P. Morgan) during his Congressional testimonies. Earlier in her career, she worked on financial litigation and white-collar criminal actions at the law firm Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz; in consultative sales and business development at Google Inc.; and as a pre-revenue founding team member at Sweetgreen, a startup turned public company. Previously, Desai served as US congressional staff for Congressman and civil rights leader John Lewis and as judicial staff for a public defender’s office and the Superior Court in Georgia.

Desai holds an MBA with distinction in finance, operations, and entrepreneurship from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and a BS with honors in international politics from Georgetown University. She is a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) Charterholder and was named one of eight “2021 FinTech Women Money Movers.” She has served on the boards of various companies and nonprofits and as an advisor, judge, and mentor, including Techstars, SAP.io , Microsoft, Google for Startups, the Georgetown Angel Investor Network, the CFA Society of New York, the New York Fashion Tech Lab, and various startups and investment firms. Her interviews have appeared in Forbes, Reuters, Emerging Managers Monthly, Business Insider, and industry publications.