I was drawn to venture capital because of the potential impact I could have on the world,” explains Sydney Thomas ’06.

After graduating from Parker, Sydney studied public policy at Duke University. During her business and finance classes, she began to wonder how she could help create more just and equitable systems that would increase access to wealth and healthcare for underrepresented communities. And after working in politics for five years and earning her MBA, she decided that working in venture capital would best maximize her ability to create change.

“I was so encouraged by the people I met and their interest in creating a better future through investing in companies that were creating the change that they wanted to see,” Sydney says about her time working at a VC-backed start-up. “Through working with them, I realized that this was exactly what I wanted to do.”

With seven years of impactful venture capital experience under her belt, Sydney took the leap and built something that she knew needed to exist—a venture capital fund that invests in technology that makes life better for the 99%.

“Technology can reduce wealth inequality by raising access to products, services, and information that have enabled a few folks to get significantly wealthy in the past,” she says, explaining the reasoning behind Symphonic Capital’s focus. “There is a lot of power in the scalability of technology that can then help a large sector of society access insights and information previously unavailable to them.”

Committed to creating an inclusive communityhowever she can, Sydney also strives to bolster diversity and equity on a more personal level. “When I first got into Venture Capital, one of the first things I did was create a Women of Color in the VC community,” she says. But her commitment to fostering change does not stop there: The entire Symphonic Capital team is made entirely of women of color.

When asked about the future, Sydney has one goal— demonstrating that the types of investments made by Symphonic Capital can be both successful and create significant positive change for as many people as possible.