Monifa Porter
Managing Partner, Venture Building, SVP of Shift AI
In her dual capacity as Managing Partner of Venture Building and SVP of Shift AI at Mach49, Monifa Porter stands at the intersection of innovation and execution. As Managing Partner, she guides global businesses in creating and launching new ventures at startup speed, ensuring Mach49's clients benefit from cutting-edge methodologies. Simultaneously, as the leader of Shift AI, Mach49's groundbreaking generative AI-powered platform, Monifa drives growth on demand for innovators worldwide. This unique position allows her to drive the integration of Shift AI's transformative tools into Mach49's venture building practice, revolutionizing how new ventures reach the market and empowering teams to transition from incremental to exponential growth with both the methodology and mindset required for success.
Monifa’s career has spanned categories from Fintech to Adtech to IOT. At Paypal, her team’s pioneering work in fraud detection leveraged algorithmic approaches to risk analysis, applying regression modeling techniques to real-world applications. At Adchemy, she patented products that applied NLP and machine learning to solve complex advertising optimization challenges, but the work left her yearning for a mission-driven focus. Monifa found values-aligned work at Opower, where she led an IOT thermostat startup within a startup, delivering energy efficiency to customers’ homes through behavioral science-driven interactions that not only predicted energy costs, but influenced the behavior changes to lower them. At Taulia, she led a large organization spanning product, design, compliance and data science, cementing herself as a trusted product leader at scale. At AAA, Monifa stood up an innovation lab for the more than a century old brand, bringing “Silicon Valley inside.” It was during this time she crossed paths with a growth advisor who reached out to invite her to join Mach49.
As an Entrepreneur-in-Residence (EIR ) at Mach49, Monifa found her home, inspired by the customer-centric and empathetic approach ingrained in the Mach49 process. Mach49's CEO, Linda Yates, tapped Monifa to transform the Mach49 methodology into a cutting-edge technology platform, leading to the birth of Shift AI.
Shift AI Incubate Playbook represents the codification of Yate's renowned book, "The Unicorn Within: How Companies Can Create Game-Changing Ventures at Startup Speed" (featured on the HBR Impact List 2023). Subsequent offerings, including Shift AI Personas, ShiftGPT, and ShiftGPT for Miro and Airtable, followed suit. These AI tools empower organizations to realize exponential growth at an unprecedented speed.
Monifa is honored to be a guest lecturer at her alma mater, the Stanford Graduate School of Business, in Product Management. Drawing from her own professional experiences, she guides aspiring product leaders and seeks to instill the values of quick innovation and bold ambition. She aims to equip these future change-makers with the same drive and passion that Stanford fostered in her during her own academic journey.
Monifa’s vision to democratize entrepreneurship globally is all the motivation she needs to spend every working hour on the task at hand. She balances this mission with her life’s most demanding yet rewarding role as loving mother to an incredible teenage daughter. Monifa, her daughter, and her partner have cultivated a flourishing permaculture garden at their home, forging a deep connection with the intricate rhythms of soil, water, sustenance, and life, playing their small part in the “unbreaking” and re-making of our planet.
Monifa’s career has spanned categories from Fintech to Adtech to IOT. At Paypal, her team’s pioneering work in fraud detection leveraged algorithmic approaches to risk analysis, applying regression modeling techniques to real-world applications. At Adchemy, she patented products that applied NLP and machine learning to solve complex advertising optimization challenges, but the work left her yearning for a mission-driven focus. Monifa found values-aligned work at Opower, where she led an IOT thermostat startup within a startup, delivering energy efficiency to customers’ homes through behavioral science-driven interactions that not only predicted energy costs, but influenced the behavior changes to lower them. At Taulia, she led a large organization spanning product, design, compliance and data science, cementing herself as a trusted product leader at scale. At AAA, Monifa stood up an innovation lab for the more than a century old brand, bringing “Silicon Valley inside.” It was during this time she crossed paths with a growth advisor who reached out to invite her to join Mach49.
As an Entrepreneur-in-Residence (EIR ) at Mach49, Monifa found her home, inspired by the customer-centric and empathetic approach ingrained in the Mach49 process. Mach49's CEO, Linda Yates, tapped Monifa to transform the Mach49 methodology into a cutting-edge technology platform, leading to the birth of Shift AI.
Shift AI Incubate Playbook represents the codification of Yate's renowned book, "The Unicorn Within: How Companies Can Create Game-Changing Ventures at Startup Speed" (featured on the HBR Impact List 2023). Subsequent offerings, including Shift AI Personas, ShiftGPT, and ShiftGPT for Miro and Airtable, followed suit. These AI tools empower organizations to realize exponential growth at an unprecedented speed.
Monifa is honored to be a guest lecturer at her alma mater, the Stanford Graduate School of Business, in Product Management. Drawing from her own professional experiences, she guides aspiring product leaders and seeks to instill the values of quick innovation and bold ambition. She aims to equip these future change-makers with the same drive and passion that Stanford fostered in her during her own academic journey.
Monifa’s vision to democratize entrepreneurship globally is all the motivation she needs to spend every working hour on the task at hand. She balances this mission with her life’s most demanding yet rewarding role as loving mother to an incredible teenage daughter. Monifa, her daughter, and her partner have cultivated a flourishing permaculture garden at their home, forging a deep connection with the intricate rhythms of soil, water, sustenance, and life, playing their small part in the “unbreaking” and re-making of our planet.
Monifa Porter
Managing Partner, Venture Building, SVP of Shift AI
In her dual capacity as Managing Partner of Venture Building and SVP of Shift AI at Mach49, Monifa Porter stands at the intersection of innovation and execution. As Managing Partner, she guides global businesses in creating and launching new ventures at startup speed, ensuring Mach49's clients benefit from cutting-edge methodologies. Simultaneously, as the leader of Shift AI, Mach49's groundbreaking generative AI-powered platform, Monifa drives growth on demand for innovators worldwide. This unique position allows her to drive the integration of Shift AI's transformative tools into Mach49's venture building practice, revolutionizing how new ventures reach the market and empowering teams to transition from incremental to exponential growth with both the methodology and mindset required for success.
Monifa’s career has spanned categories from Fintech to Adtech to IOT. At Paypal, her team’s pioneering work in fraud detection leveraged algorithmic approaches to risk analysis, applying regression modeling techniques to real-world applications. At Adchemy, she patented products that applied NLP and machine learning to solve complex advertising optimization challenges, but the work left her yearning for a mission-driven focus. Monifa found values-aligned work at Opower, where she led an IOT thermostat startup within a startup, delivering energy efficiency to customers’ homes through behavioral science-driven interactions that not only predicted energy costs, but influenced the behavior changes to lower them. At Taulia, she led a large organization spanning product, design, compliance and data science, cementing herself as a trusted product leader at scale. At AAA, Monifa stood up an innovation lab for the more than a century old brand, bringing “Silicon Valley inside.” It was during this time she crossed paths with a growth advisor who reached out to invite her to join Mach49.
As an Entrepreneur-in-Residence (EIR ) at Mach49, Monifa found her home, inspired by the customer-centric and empathetic approach ingrained in the Mach49 process. Mach49's CEO, Linda Yates, tapped Monifa to transform the Mach49 methodology into a cutting-edge technology platform, leading to the birth of Shift AI.
Shift AI Incubate Playbook represents the codification of Yate's renowned book, "The Unicorn Within: How Companies Can Create Game-Changing Ventures at Startup Speed" (featured on the HBR Impact List 2023). Subsequent offerings, including Shift AI Personas, ShiftGPT, and ShiftGPT for Miro and Airtable, followed suit. These AI tools empower organizations to realize exponential growth at an unprecedented speed.
Monifa is honored to be a guest lecturer at her alma mater, the Stanford Graduate School of Business, in Product Management. Drawing from her own professional experiences, she guides aspiring product leaders and seeks to instill the values of quick innovation and bold ambition. She aims to equip these future change-makers with the same drive and passion that Stanford fostered in her during her own academic journey.
Monifa’s vision to democratize entrepreneurship globally is all the motivation she needs to spend every working hour on the task at hand. She balances this mission with her life’s most demanding yet rewarding role as loving mother to an incredible teenage daughter. Monifa, her daughter, and her partner have cultivated a flourishing permaculture garden at their home, forging a deep connection with the intricate rhythms of soil, water, sustenance, and life, playing their small part in the “unbreaking” and re-making of our planet.
Monifa’s career has spanned categories from Fintech to Adtech to IOT. At Paypal, her team’s pioneering work in fraud detection leveraged algorithmic approaches to risk analysis, applying regression modeling techniques to real-world applications. At Adchemy, she patented products that applied NLP and machine learning to solve complex advertising optimization challenges, but the work left her yearning for a mission-driven focus. Monifa found values-aligned work at Opower, where she led an IOT thermostat startup within a startup, delivering energy efficiency to customers’ homes through behavioral science-driven interactions that not only predicted energy costs, but influenced the behavior changes to lower them. At Taulia, she led a large organization spanning product, design, compliance and data science, cementing herself as a trusted product leader at scale. At AAA, Monifa stood up an innovation lab for the more than a century old brand, bringing “Silicon Valley inside.” It was during this time she crossed paths with a growth advisor who reached out to invite her to join Mach49.
As an Entrepreneur-in-Residence (EIR ) at Mach49, Monifa found her home, inspired by the customer-centric and empathetic approach ingrained in the Mach49 process. Mach49's CEO, Linda Yates, tapped Monifa to transform the Mach49 methodology into a cutting-edge technology platform, leading to the birth of Shift AI.
Shift AI Incubate Playbook represents the codification of Yate's renowned book, "The Unicorn Within: How Companies Can Create Game-Changing Ventures at Startup Speed" (featured on the HBR Impact List 2023). Subsequent offerings, including Shift AI Personas, ShiftGPT, and ShiftGPT for Miro and Airtable, followed suit. These AI tools empower organizations to realize exponential growth at an unprecedented speed.
Monifa is honored to be a guest lecturer at her alma mater, the Stanford Graduate School of Business, in Product Management. Drawing from her own professional experiences, she guides aspiring product leaders and seeks to instill the values of quick innovation and bold ambition. She aims to equip these future change-makers with the same drive and passion that Stanford fostered in her during her own academic journey.
Monifa’s vision to democratize entrepreneurship globally is all the motivation she needs to spend every working hour on the task at hand. She balances this mission with her life’s most demanding yet rewarding role as loving mother to an incredible teenage daughter. Monifa, her daughter, and her partner have cultivated a flourishing permaculture garden at their home, forging a deep connection with the intricate rhythms of soil, water, sustenance, and life, playing their small part in the “unbreaking” and re-making of our planet.
