Barbara Piette

Barbara Piette serves as a Lecturer in Marketing at Boston University Questrom School of Business, teaching Leadership Communications at the graduate level and authoring the MBA course The Entrepreneur’s Communication Playbook: Persuading Throughout the Entrepreneurial Cycle. With over twenty years of venture capital experience as General Partner at Charles River Ventures and Schroder Ventures, she brings practitioner expertise to academia while maintaining active roles in investment advisory and board leadership.

Her educational background includes:

• BS summa cum laude, Boston College (graduated first in class)
• MBA with honors, Harvard Business School

Barbara's research focuses on entrepreneurial communication strategies across the venture lifecycle, examining how persuasive messaging drives investment decisions and startup growth. She bridges venture capital practices with communication theory, emphasizing sector-specific challenges in technology, healthcare, and fintech. Her work highlights the critical intersection of leadership presence and evidence-based storytelling for entrepreneurs.

Barbara Piette actively advises six venture capital firms: Construct Capital (foundational industries), At One Ventures (planet-positive ventures), Tera Ventures (Estonia-based digital startups), Material Impact Fund (materials), _Underscore (cloud infrastructure), and Will Ventures (sports technology). She serves on the boards of BankProv, Provident Bancorp, and the Concussion Legacy Foundation (as Development Committee Chair), and has judged the Harvard Business School New Ventures Competition for over twenty years.

As former Managing Principal of Knightsbridge Advisers, LLC, she co-led portfolio management and investment due diligence. Though stepping back from day-to-day operations in 2018, she maintains active involvement in strategic decisions while expanding her academic contributions through curriculum development and industry mentorship.