Deena Shakir
Partner, Lux Capital
Deena Shakir is a Partner at Lux Capital, where she invests in transformative technologies improving lives and livelihoods. She is particularly interested in intersectional and underdog entrepreneurs building breakthrough companies to accelerate advances and equity in human and population health.
Since joining Lux in late 2019, Deena has led a number of investments and currently sits on the boards of Maven Clinic, SteadyMD, Alife Health, H1, Adyn, AllStripes, and Shiru.
Prior to joining Lux, Deena was a Partner at GV (formerly Google Ventures), previously led product partnerships at Google for early stage products in healthcare, AI/ML and search at Google, and directed social impact investments at Google.org.
Before tech and venture, Deena had diverse partnership-centric experiences as an aspiring anthropologist, journalist, diplomat, aid worker and technologist. She was a Presidential Management Fellow at the U.S. Department of State under Secretary Clinton, where she helped launch President Obama’s first Global Entrepreneurship Summit in 2010. Her non-traditional path has cultivated Deena’s deep conviction in the potential of breakthrough ventures to positively transform the future and garnered her unparalleled network to help them achieve it.
A Forbes contributor, Deena is a frequent commentator and has been featured in a number of publications such as Fortune, Techcrunch, Marie Claire, Business Insider, where she was listed as "top 30 under 40 in healthcare," and The Wall Street Journal, where she was named one of the top 9 women to watch in venture capital in 2021. She has also appeared in broadcasts on CNBC, CBS, and Bloomberg. Deena also serves on the Boards of several non-profits including Tarjimly, TechWadi, and AMIDEAST. She is a member of Fortune's Most Powerful Women, Kauffman Fellows, Aspen Finance Fellows and the Aspen Global Leadership Network, the Council on Foreign Relations, All Raise, and the Valence Network for Black entrepreneurs.
Deena self-funded her education through a variety of merit scholarships and side hustles, including co-founding her first company while still in college. She earned a joint BA in Social Studies and Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations from Harvard (where she delivered the graduation address) and an MA from Georgetown’s School of Foreign Service. She is also currently a Lecturer in the School of Engineering at the Stanford Design School.