From CIO to VC: BGV Advisory Partner Marina Levinson on Vertical AI, Startup Bridges & Board Leadership

September 26, 2025

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About the Guest

Marina Levinson

Advisory Partner at Benhamou Global Ventures (BGV)

Marina Levinson is an Advisory Partner at Benhamou Global Ventures (BGV), a venture capital firm focused on early-stage enterprise IT startups. Over her 11+ years with BGV, she has transitioned from investment partner to advisory partner, now focusing on value creation and product-market fit. Prior to VC, Marina was CIO at both NetApp and Palm, where she built deep expertise in enterprise technology. She founded the CIO Advisory Group to connect tech executives with the VC and PE communities and serves on multiple public and advisory boards, including Grid Dynamics. She continues to mentor startups and guide tech leaders on innovation adoption.

Episode Overview

Marina Levinson shares her journey from CIO to venture investor to startup advisor, revealing the skills, relationships, and mindset shifts needed to thrive across roles, how her experience as a tech buyer sharpened her investment approach, how she built bridges between enterprise executives and startups, and highlights such as how CIOs can play a bigger role in innovation ecosystems, why BGV invests in vertical AI rather than infrastructure, lessons from AiDASH, COVU, and Interactly.ai, what makes a solution “must-have” vs. “nice-to-have”, and advice for executives pursuing public or private board roles.

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