Bill Baumel brings Silicon Valley cred to Ohio universities’ VC drive

The managing director of the Ohio Innovation Fund has just the background to lead the $40 million venture capital fund, where he also has built what he calls the top venture entrepreneurship training for students in the country.

When Bill Baumel was in business school at the University of Michigan, all his friends wanted to go into investment banking on Wall Street. It was the early 1990s and they were dying to get interviews with Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Merrill Lynch, Boston Consulting, Andersen Consulting and the like. Not Bill Baumel.

With a bachelor’s degree in accounting from Ohio State University, the Cincinnati native had spent two years following college at Deloitte & Touche in San Francisco, where he earned his CPA. There, he found himself doing due diligence for private equity firms. The experience was enough to draw him into the field of venture capital when he went to the University of Michigan for his MBA.

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Story excerpt provided by Columbus CEO.

Written by Katy Smith.

Originally published November 26, 2019.