Matthew Le Merle is co-founder and Managing Partner of Fifth Era and of Keiretsu Capital - the most active US venture investors and world’s largest angel investor network.Matthew is an expert on corporate growth, innovation, digitization and technology transformations having advised leading companies including Amazon, Cisco, eBay, Google, HP, Microsoft, PayPal and many others on growth and innovation-related issues.Matthew’s career has spanned being a global strategy advisor, professional services firm leader, corporate operating executive, private equity and venture capital investor, and board director for high growth public and private companies. His board work has included Chairman or Non-Executive Director roles in 14 companies and active Advisory Board roles in a further 9. Matthew’s board experience includes a broad range of industries including Business Services, Consumer and Retail, Digital Entertainment, eCommerce, and Fintech.Matthew has advised sovereign and regional economic entities on issues of innovation, entrepreneurialism and cluster growth. Clients have covered the globe from China, the EU, and the UK to the US including in his home state of California and the Bay Area/Silicon Valley.Earlier in his career, Matthew spent 21 years as a strategy consultant and advisor to Fortune 500 CEOs, boards and executive teams with McKinsey & Company, and as a practice leader with A.T. Kearney and Monitor Group where he led both firms’ West Coast practices and at Booz & Company. He was also a corporate executive at Gap Inc. where he was SVP strategy and corporate development and SVP global marketing.Matthew received a B.A. (Double First) and Master’s from Christ Church, Oxford, and an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business. He was born in London, UK, and is now a dual US/UK citizen and lives in the San Francisco Bay Area and London, UK with his wife, Alison Davis, and their five children.