Lisa Lewin, CEO of General Assembly, Joins Primary as CEO in Residence
Now with a billion in assets under management, Primary is continuing to set a higher bar for the caliber of expertise we bring to founders.
In the coming weeks, Primary’s Investors will start writing checks out of Fund IV, beginning relationships with dozens of new early stage founders. We’ll be doing this against a backdrop of banking crises, shitty markets, and a glut of ‘21 seed funds to compete against.
It’s an environment that brings us back to our foundational principles. When Brad Svrluga and I cofounded Primary in 2015, we wanted to offer New York City’s most elite early stage founders a completely unheard of, unreasonable level of support. We’ve done that, spending $4.5 million a year employing seasoned operators, and have seen that approach validated by the 11x return on our first fund.
So when we think about facing challenges and supporting founders, we are digging in deeper on what we know works: Hiring the smartest minds in the startup space to create tangible value for founders. Lisa Lewin, most recently CEO of General Assembly, is the embodiment of this idea, and we’re honored to welcome her to the team today as CEO in Residence.
As the CEO of the world’s largest coding bootcamp, Lisa has enabled more than 10,000 startup operators in New York City alone while leading a team of over 1,500. As a former founder who coded much of the initial product for the edtech company she launched in 2008, she knows what it means to wear the founder’s shoes and weather tough environments.
In this new role as CEO in Residence at Primary, Lisa will join our Impact team, where she’ll partner with founders to drive strategy and leadership decisions to accelerate their paths to becoming world-class CEOs. She’ll contribute to the operational infrastructure Cassie Young and Rebecca Price have built over the past years, plus create new programs we’ll share more about in the coming months. For now, I hope you’ll join us in welcoming Lisa to the team—and introducing us to early stage founders looking to work with this level of truly exceptional startup leadership.