Karinya Turnbull
Chief of Staff
Shell Ventures
Based in the Netherlands
Karinya Turnbull's shift into corporate ventures came after a moment of reflection after the birth of her children.
“During my maternity leave, I really thought about what energizes me and what I perform at my best, and making a positive impact is part of that, so working in clean technology to contribute to the scaling of technology and future energy systems was an attractive opportunity for me,” she says.
Turnbull joined British oil and gas multinational Shell straight out of university in 2009. He began his career as a retail operations analyst before being promoted to commercial adviser to Prelude, a floating natural gas project off the coast of Australia.
But in 2019 she left Australia for the Netherlands to join the Shell ventures team, where she is now chief of staff, overseeing both deal generation and partner engagement.
Founded in 1996, Shell Ventures has a fund of $1.4 billion and invests in start-ups in the energy, industrial, IT and transportation sectors, with typical initial investment amounts ranging from $2 million to $5 million.
The firm has about 75 portfolio companies, including decarbonization company Gridpoint, autonomous delivery robot maker Kartken and rooftop solar panel technology Palmetto.
Much of Turnbull's work has focused on advancing the oil and gas industry's technologies to adapt to the energy transition, and she is now also focusing on artificial intelligence.
“You can't talk about technology without talking about AI. How much will AI increase demand? How much more efficient will the demand profile be?” she says.
“That's really interesting when you think about traceability of commodity products, carbon-enriched products, (and) what technologies and platforms might be enabled to develop and promote policies that drive greener supply chains and commodity choices to advance a sustainability perspective.”
Shell Ventures also invests in external funds and incubators, including GreenTown Labs, a US clean tech incubator that targets companies developing new technologies for the oil and gas industry, and EV Private Equity.
Turnbull believes women are under-represented in the CVC.
“I believe that having diverse perspectives, and gender is one of the hallmarks of diversity, improves understanding of risks and opportunities related to strategy setting, theory development, capital allocation and, particularly for CVCs, insight generation,” she says.
Before going into business, Turnbull competed in gymnastics, diving and mogul skiing – the latter of which has since changed its rules to allow backflips, but which were initially only available to men.
“Seeing another woman do it helped me realize, oh, okay, now I can do that too.”
And she's bringing that lesson with her into the CVC world: “We need to make sure women in positions of power and women who have entered CVC in non-traditional ways are visible and show future leaders what's possible.”
