Claude Leglise, who last month joined San Francisco venture capital firm WI Harper, has a simple explanation for why he left Intel Capital last April after 23 years: “Sometimes you have to repot plants. I had to repot myself.”
Leglise, 50, ran Intel Capital’s international business, which included more than 150 investments in 25 countries. But the scale and pace of the operation left little room for personal growth. “Running a group of 500, there was never a ten-second hiatus in anything,” he says. “I started my day making phone calls to Israel and Russia, worked my way through Latin America and ended up with Asia in the evening.”
In contrast, Leglise says his work as a managing director at WI Harper -- which oversees nearly $300 million, invested mostly in China and Taiwan -- is more stimulating. “It’s more cerebral than running a big operation,” he asserts. “Decisions take longer and are well thought out.” His compensation may also be greater, depending on his performance. “At a big shop like Intel, I wasn’t paid badly. But sometimes the relationship with what I did wasn’t entirely clear.”
As the only member of the firm who does not speak Chinese -- something the French-born Leglise, an electrical engineer by training, says he’ll attempt to remedy -- his primary focus will be U.S.-based start-ups that target Chinese consumers. “The traditional venture capital model has been to build products in Silicon Valley, sell them in the U.S. and, once it’s proven that it works, start exporting. But I’ve seen a number of opportunities where the company can be started here and immediately start selling in Asia.”
