Drake Hicks

Before joining Variant, Hicks was Head of Strategic Partnerships for Manifest Climate, an AI-enabled climate technology startup where she oversaw the implementation of the company's platform on Microsoft Azure Marketplace. Before that she was the ESG lead for Base 10 Partners, the largest Black-led venture capital firm. Previously, she was Head of Impact Investing for the JPB Foundation (now Freedom Together Foundation), where she launched the impact investing mandate, investing $55 million across poverty, environment and medical research in her time leading the program. She began her career in structured finance at BlackRock both in New York City, and globally, in Frankfurt (Germany) and Singapore.

Hicks holds a bachelor's degree in Asian and International studies from Williams College and a master's degree in business administration from INSEAD, an international business school, which she attended at its Fontainebleau, France campus. She is a board member of Reclaim Childhood, a nonprofit creating safe spaces for refugee and local girls in Jordan.