May 11, 2007

Spong Helps Businesses Sow Firm Roots

New Mexico Business Weekly

Yes, she's looking for great deals for her firm, Wasatch Venture Fund. And, yes, she's intimately involved in vetting technology start-ups, mentoring entrepreneurs and helping push portfolio companies toward profitability.

But her motivations come from the gut -- from a deeply imbedded commitment to improving people's lives through economic development.

"New Mexico is a wonderful place, yet there are so many people in poverty here," Spong says. "We need to build a healthy, growing, diverse economy. I love being a venture capitalist because I get to build companies and good jobs that can support families."

She also believes that by promoting new technologies through venture-backed, start-up firms, she can contribute to sustainable development and environmental protection.

"For me it's all about good environmental stewardship by promoting sustainable businesses that use technology to resolve some of the basic problems facing the planet," Spong says. "We can grow the economy and meet society's needs, but we need to do that with appropriate technology."

Colleagues say Spong's commitment to her ideals and her zest for life shine through everything she does. "She's a breath of fresh air," says Jerry Mattingly, president of the New Mexico Angels. "She lights up a room when she walks in."

Bob Harbour, president and CEO of Wasatch portfolio company Lumidigm Inc., compared Spong's fresh approach to investments with her love for gardening.

"You could almost say she takes a gardening approach to business," Harbour says. "She loves her job in terms of finding and growing technology companies. Whether she's working with plants or businesses, her motivation comes from a genuine, authentic desire to grow firm, healthy roots."

The roots of Spong's personal dedication and commitment might spring, in part, from years of cross-cultural experience that opened her eyes to hardship while inspiring an appreciation of differences among people.

Spong grew up in Lawrenceville, N.J., but graduated from Fairview High School in Bolder, Colo., where her family moved when she was 15. Her parents instilled a fascination for foreign countries in her by preparing weekly family dinners with food from other nations and readings about the history and culture of those countries. That encouraged Spong to spend her senior year in high school in Japan through a Rotary exchange scholarship.

"Japan and visions of 'paper houses' fascinated me," Spong says. "I wanted to go to the land of the Samurai and sliding paper walls. Of course, what I saw there was totally different than that, but I wound up being involved in Japan in various ways for the next 10 years."

She studied at Brigham Young University in Utah, graduating cum laude in 1987 with a B.A. in economics and Asian studies. While there, she spent a summer on a study scholarship in 1985 at Nanjing University in China -- an experience that changed her outlook on life. "I saw real poverty for the first time," Spong

says. "It profoundly shocked me. As a result, when I returned to college, I switched from engineering to economics to work on economic development."

Once out of college, she worked as a financial analyst with Goldman, Sachs & Co. in Manhattan, N.Y., researching Japanese markets for U.S. investors. But by 1988, she was back in Japan, this time to help U.S.-based consultant Monitor Co. establish an office in Tokyo.

Spong returned to the U.S. in 1990 to earn an MBA at Harvard University's Graduate School of Business Administration. While there, she met her husband -- a Nicaraguan who also attended Harvard. By 1993 -- following a brief period with Boston-based consultant Symmetrix -- Spong left the country again, this time bound for Mexico City with her husband.

She worked as a country director with Citibank in Mexico, at first helping to upgrade the bank's customer service group. But in 1994, Mexico devalued its currency, leading to a crippling financial crisis that engulfed Latin America. Spong helped restructure Citibank's operations to better manage financial fallout from the peso crash.

Later, she joined global consultant McKinsey & Co. Inc. as an engagement manager, but she remained in Mexico during 1995 to help McKinsey develop a privatization strategy for Mexico's electricity system. From 1996 to 1998, she continued as a consultant with McKinsey, working with U.S. energy and utilities companies.

In 1998, Spong struck out on her own professionally. She launched a business in Los Angeles -- Greystone Management Consulting -- to assist technology companies with new product development and market research. She focused especially on ways to develop online business strategies. She also worked for two years (1999 to 2001) as managing director of the Los Angeles office of Razorfish, a consultancy that helped build large corporate Web sites.

"I loved every minuteof it," she says. "I'll get to tell my grandchildren I was a captain in the digital revolution."

She remained in Los Angeles until 2005, when Utah-based Wasatch recruited her to run their New Mexico office and manage fund operations in Arizona and Colorado. Sadly, Spong moved to New Mexico alone, after her husband died in a car accident in Mexico City.

In her current position, Spong combines years of experience in financial management, market analysis and consulting work to help local start-ups work towards profitability. She works directly with five New Mexico companies that have received Wasatch investments, and she screens new technologies in New Mexico, Arizona and Colorado for potential investments.

Her colleagues say Spong is particularly effective as an investor because of her ability to gently, but firmly persuade entrepreneurs to accept advice.

"She has a rare talent of being tenacious and tough when needed but always remaining extremely diplomatic," says Richard H. Harding, general partner with the International Ventures Fund.

For her part, Spong says that after so many years of living in different places inside and outside the U.S., she's finally growing roots in New Mexico. She bought a home in Santa Fe and has planted an orchard with 34 fruit trees.

"I love where I'm at, and I look forward to spending the next decade as a venture capitalist helping to build the economy," Spong says. "New Mexico is my home. I'm here to stay."

krobinson-avila@bizjournals.com | 348-8302