Victoria Ransom

Victoria Ransom is a serial entrepreneur from New Zealand. She has developed three companies including Wildfire Interactive, a social marketing SaaS company, where Ransom was chief executive officer until it was sold to Google in 2012.[1][2] Ransom currently resides in Palo Alto.[3]

Victoria Ransom
NationalityNew Zealander
EducationBachelor of Arts, Master of Business Administration
Alma materUnited World College, Macalester College, Harvard Business School
OccupationEntrepreneur
Known forCo-founder and CEO of Wildfire Interactive
PartnerAlain Chuard

Ransom was listed as one of Fortune's Most Powerful Women Entrepreneurs[4] as well as one of their 40 under 40 in 2012.[5] In 2015, she was named a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum.[6][7]

Education

Ransom was raised on an asparagus farm in Scotts Ferry, near Bulls, New Zealand.[8] In her final year at Whanganui Girls' College,[9] she won a scholarship to attend international high school United World College in New Mexico.[10][11] She then attended Macalester College, where she earned her BA in psychology and graduated summa cum laude in 1999.[11] Ransom received her MBA from Harvard Business School in 2008.[10]

Career

After graduating from Macalester, Ransom moved to London where she worked as a business consultant. Later, she moved to New York City and worked for investment banking firm Morgan Stanley. She left the company in 2001 and founded Access Trips, an adventure travel company in New Zealand.[11] Ransom co-ran Access Trips for five years before returning to the US to attend business school.[12] While at Harvard Business School, Ransom co-developed a distributed booking system for small and medium size travel companies, resulting in a summer at Highland Capital Partners as an Entrepreneur in Residence.[13]

In 2008, Ransom founded Wildfire Interactive, a social marketing software company initially developed to help promote Access Trips.[1] Ransom ran Wildfire as chief executive officer and grew the company to 400 employees in four years.[11] In 2010, she sold Access Trips.[14] In 2012, Google bought Wildfire for a reported $450 million and Ransom became the Director of Product at Google.[15][16]

She was named Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award for New Zealand in 2011.[17][18] In 2013, she was invited to the White House by Barack Obama to receive a "Champion of Change" award recognizing her contributions as an immigrant entrepreneur.[19] In 2015, she was awarded the World Class New Zealander award along with former New Zealand Prime Minister, Helen Clark.[20] In 2016, she was NEXT Woman of the Year in the Business and Innovation category.[21]

In 2020, Ransom co-founded Prisma, a remote education startup.[22]

Personal life

In college she met Alain Chuard, also a Macalester student and Ransom's future business partner.[1][11] The two married in March 2013 and had a daughter in 2014.[23][16]

References
  1. Coster, Helen (19 October 2012). "Victoria Ransom's wild ride". TIME Magazine. Retrieved 28 September 2015.
  2. Bryant, Adam (26 January 2013). "If Supervisors Respect the Values, So Will Everyone Else". New York Times. Retrieved 28 September 2015.
  3. Barr, Alastair (12 May 2015). "Google Shopping Leader Decamps for Jawbone". Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 28 September 2015.
  4. Sellers, Patricia (31 August 2012). "Who are the 2012 Most Powerful Women Entrepreneurs?". Fortune Magazine. Retrieved 28 September 2015.
  5. "40 Under 40 2012". Fortune Magazine. Retrieved 28 September 2015.
  6. "Victoria Ransom Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Wildfire Google". World Economic Forum. Retrieved 28 September 2015.
  7. "RANSOM Victoria Technology". National Business Review. Retrieved 28 September 2015.
  8. "Rangitikei woman makes rich list". Manawatu Standard. 25 July 2013. Retrieved 10 January 2016.
  9. Scherer, Karyn (1 September 2012). "A king's ransom". The Listener. Retrieved 11 April 2012.
  10. Clarke, Charlotte (8 October 2012). "Ten Questions: Victoria Ransom". The Financial Times Limited. Retrieved 28 September 2015.
  11. Rebeck, Gene. "The Winding Road To Wildfire". Macalester College. Retrieved 28 September 2015.
  12. Mitra, Sramana (29 March 2012). "From New Zealand To Silicon Valley: Victoria Ransom's Wildfire Journey". sramanamitra.com. Retrieved 28 September 2015.
  13. "Next Woman List: Victoria Ransom". The NextWomen. Retrieved 28 September 2015.
  14. Shinal, John (28 June 2011). "The Spark That Fuels Wildfire Interactive". Entrepreneur Magazine. Retrieved 28 September 2015.
  15. "Google World - Facts and Stats". LinkedIn Corporation. Retrieved 28 September 2015.
  16. Dudding, Adam (21 June 2015). "Google's Kiwi multimillionaire on how she did it". Fairfax New Zealand Limited. Retrieved 28 September 2015.
  17. Bird, Kendall (18 March 2013). "5 Women Who Are Revolutionizing the Tech Industry". Rasmussen, Inc. Retrieved 28 September 2015.
  18. "Entrepreneur of the Year 2012". Co.OfWomen. Retrieved 28 September 2015.
  19. "White House honors local immigrant innovators". MediaNews Group. 29 May 2013. Retrieved 28 September 2015.
  20. Anthony, John (2 July 2015). "Helen Clark wins Kea World Class New Zealand Award". Fairfax New Zealand Limited. Retrieved 28 September 2015.
  21. "NEXT Woman of the Year Winners 2016". www.scoop.co.nz. 14 October 2016. Retrieved 6 June 2021.
  22. "Online learning pods gain in popularity as schools face precarious reopening". Retrieved 29 March 2021.
  23. Fletcher, Hamish (21 September 2012). "NZ startups can thrive, says Ransom". NZME Publishing Limited. Retrieved 13 October 2015.
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