Customer Success for Long-term Growth | Kent Bennett and Peter Weed
Channel: MIT Venture Capital & Innovation
Date: 2017-06-21

Kent Bennett of Bessemer Ventures and Peter Weed of McKinsey discuss service and the importance of investing in the customer's success as the foundation for business growth and innovation. Introduction by David Lighton of MIT Sloan.

The MIT Venture Capital + Innovation Conference is held annually in February at the MIT Sloan School of Management. Thank you to our lead sponsor IBM Research, as well as Solvay, Wilmer Hale, Finnegan, The MIT Industrial Liaison Program, the MIT Startup Exchange, and Startup Hub Boston. Visit http://www.mitvcconference.com/.

Kent Bennett, a Partner in Bessemer's Cambridge, Mass. office, joined the company in 2008. Kent focuses on investments in the "big data", data-infrastructure sectors as well as tech-enabled consumer service models.

At Bessemer, Kent has been involved in investments including data-management companies Endeca (acq. by Oracle), Streambase (acq. by TIBX), Vertica (acq. by HP), Hadapt, Infinio Systems, Netuitive and Portrait Software; mobile-communications companies BroadSoft (IPO), Millennial Media (IPO) and Enforta; as well as in Blue Apron and Goal.com.

Prior to joining Bessemer, Kent was a creative executive for an entertainment-production company, where he developed and sold original material including a network television pilot and a feature film.  He began his career with Bain & Co.

Kent holds an MBA from Harvard Business School, where he was a Baker Scholar, and a B.S. degree, summa cum laude, in systems engineering from the University of Virginia, where he was a Jefferson Scholar.