Anne Cocquyt

Founder, The Guild

San Francisco

Anne Cocquyt has successfully led a broad range of companies, projects, startups and non-profit organizations in multiple industries ranging from IT to hardware, consumer products, machine learning, social networking, cancer prevention, medical device, and biotech. She also has a strong commitment to advancing the careers of women leaders.

Anne's professional journey across four continents has been driven by her passion for transforming ideas into reality and guiding multi-cultural teams to successful implementation.

Anne started her career in the IT industry with Detecon Switzerland, leading multi-million dollar IT outsourcing projects across Europe and Asia with clients like Philips, Shell and Deutsche Telekom. She launched her first NGO in Switzerland, organizing high-end events to fundraise for charitable projects in Zambia, South America and Switzerland. She then ventured into the business of art, which she discovered was not her forte, before launching her own IT strategy consultancy, Amanecer consulting GmbH & LTD.

She joined Genentech in 2013, first managing the execution of 12,000 educational programs with a budget of $10M, then leading commercial partnerships -- advocating and implementing digital health innovation across the company, Simultaneously, she founded and sold a small consumer product company, Bezl LLC.

As a new Bay Area resident, Anne invested heavily in her network and founded Bubbles and Biz, a ladies club, to help other women grow in their careers and start their own businesses.

In 2016, Anne decided to take the leap and transform her knowledge in data science, her commitment to women leaders and her close connections to the entrepreneurial ecosystem in Silicon Valley to support her new venture: The GUILD.

The GUILD's customizable platform offers face-to-face networking for women at all career stages (B2C directly to subscribers, and B2B directly on a corporate intranet). The Guild has already initiated over 15,000 in-person conversations to spur career growth and mentorship.

In February, 2107, she raised her first round of angel-funding and has since rapidly grown The GUILD into a destination networking service for women with corporate and non-profit clients. Today, she is expanding internationally and attracting hundreds of ambassadors, volunteers, partners and top talent to work on creating the first global marketplace for women to connect to each other, to resources and the knowledge they need to expand their careers and grow their businesses.

Anne completed her MBA in Germany in 2007 and she shares her expertise as an innovator and serial entrepreneur as a guest lecturer at the University of San Francisco, teaching applied design and rapid prototyping, and at the California Academy of the Arts, mentoring business model innovation.

Anne serves as the advisor to several digital health startups in cancer care coordination and patient education for stroke prevention. She also advises the health tech track of the 500 Startups accelerator and she takes an active role in due diligence and the acceleration program of the Singularity University Accelerator and the French Tech Hub.