- Before she was the first 23-time Grand Slam champion, Williams was a 16-year-old prodigy who turned to her father when she started receiving her first paychecks.
- But although he was an astute businessman, Williams’ father, Richard Williams, made sure Serena managed her own finances.
As a teenager, Serena Williams, the tennis star turned venture capitalist, was managing her own money.
Before she was the first 23-time Grand Slam champion, Williams was a 16-year-old prodigy who turned to her father when she started earning her first real paychecks from playing tennis and landing endorsement deals, she said in an interview on the podcast The Deal. Bloomberg with Alex Rodriguez and Jason Kelly.
But although he was an astute businessman, Williams’ father, Richard Williams, made sure Serena managed her own finances.
“I remember having to figure it out and learn how to manage from a young age and not go crazy. So he enabled us to do that,” Williams said in the interview.
Williams’ father, portrayed in the film “King Richard: Making Champions” (2021), was a huge influence not only on Williams’ career but also on her second act, she said. He helped turn her and her sister, Venus Williams, into superstars, but he also taught Serena many lessons about business.
When Serena was 16 and pursuing what would become a $13 million endorsement deal with Puma, her father made sure she accompanied him as he negotiated with major Puma investor and film producer Arnon Milchan.
Although she admittedly fell asleep during the late-night negotiation, Williams said she incorporated the lessons learned from that first sponsorship when she made her own deals later. “I’m 16, my dad is negotiating, they’re going back and forth, and he wants me to be there all the time to make sure I know what to do in the future,” she said.
Throughout her career, her focus was on her game, so much so that she admitted that she often forgot to pick up the checks she earned from participating in tournaments. But thanks to her father, she also developed a talent for business and endorsements, as evidenced later by the half-billion dollars she would earn over the course of her two-decade-plus career.
“I learned early on that your tennis check — maybe that’s why I forgot about them — should be your smallest earnings,” she said.
After retiring in 2022, Williams began devoting more time to Serena Ventures, the venture capital fund she started in 2014, and was able to use many of the lessons she took from her father and her own businesses. And she channeled the same competitiveness she used on the court into her work. “For me, success right now is having great investments,” she said.
At Serena Ventures, Williams aims to help level the playing field for women and people of color after learning that only 2% of venture capital dollars go to female founders and just 1% to founders of color. Serena Ventures has invested in more than 20 companies, and Williams has made dozens of angel investments. The fund’s portfolio of companies contains 68% that were founded by women and people of color, she said.
“We don’t care what you look like, but we hear your story if you’re a woman, we hear your story if you’re a person of color, and a lot of people who look like me don’t even have their story heard.”
This story was originally published on Fortune.com
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