In this episode, Kristina Chapple ’22 joins scholar host Stella Smolowitz ’26 to share her fast-tracked journey from UNC–Chapel Hill to becoming a general partner at 11 Tribes Ventures, an early-stage venture capital firm investing in values-driven founders. Kristina reflects on how her undergraduate experience at Carolina, including her interdisciplinary coursework, entrepreneurship minor, and time abroad with the UNC Shuford Program in Entrepreneurship, set the foundation for a purpose-led career. A Phi Beta Kappa inductee and Wilberforce Leadership Program alumna, Kristina discusses how community and curiosity continue to shape her approach to leadership.
In this episode, Kristina Chapple ’22 joins scholar host Stella Smolowitz ’26 to share her fast-tracked journey from UNC–Chapel Hill to becoming a general partner at 11 Tribes Ventures, an early-stage venture capital firm investing in values-driven founders.
Kristina reflects on how her undergraduate experience at Carolina, including her interdisciplinary coursework, entrepreneurship minor, and time abroad with the UNC Shuford Program in Entrepreneurship, set the foundation for a purpose-led career. A Phi Beta Kappa inductee and Wilberforce Leadership Program alumna, Kristina discusses how community and curiosity continue to shape her approach to leadership.
She offers an inside look at how 11 Tribes Ventures evaluates startups and prioritizes mission alignment and character as much as financial viability. The conversation dives into her belief in challenging conventional VC practices, supporting visionary founders, and leading with empathy in high-stakes environments.
Kristina also shares insights for young professionals on navigating early career decisions, creating meaningful impact, and maintaining integrity—plus, what it was like to be named to the Forbes 30 Under 30 list in venture capital.
Music credits
The episode’s intro song is by scholar Scott Hallyburton ’22, guitarist of the band South of the Soul.
How to listen
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(Stella)
So, this morning at the Food for Thought session, you shared about walking into a space with a “there you are” mentality instead of a “here I am” mentality, which I think stuck with a lot of scholars that I was talking to afterwards. How can listeners really begin to implement this mentality in their life? If someone like me or anyone listening to this podcast or this morning really wanted to start doing that, how would you go about that?
(Kristina)
I would start any conversation and make sure that I get their name. Firstly, that is something easy to gloss over. I will say the name three times out loud in my first conversation with the individual because there’s something neurologically that locks it in more. It’s so often that we are coming with an agenda or things to say that whatever the other person that we are getting to speak to has to say or share, whether it be their name or an actual idea, we don’t store it and house it in our mind. That’s one way to be more “there you are” oriented is to focus on the name because there’s so much power in it.
(Stella)
I love that. And I even noticed that when I asked a question today and you were like, you repeated my name back, and I was like, wow, she really cares about my question because you repeated my name. So definitely a good way to start. So, let’s talk about your journey to Carolina. You talked this morning about how you went to high school in Georgia. There’s a lot of in-state students at Carolina. What even attracted you to Carolina or the Morehead-Cain? Tell me about your interest story.
(Kristina)
I am the oldest of two. I have a younger sister, but most of my life, I was the first to do things. I have always tried to seek wisdom from those who have gone before me. I had a couple of friends in high school who I saw as an older sister figure, one of whom had ties to North Carolina, went to UNC. I visited her while I was still in high school and loved the experience of Chapel Hill and the town that bled Carolina Blue. When I applied to UNC, I submitted a regular early admissions application, didn’t know what would come back. I’ll never forget, December of my senior year, while studying for my final high school literature midterm on Hamlet, I was perusing my junk mail, procrastinating, studying, and clicked on one email from UNC, one of many that was unread, and it was inviting me to apply to the Morehead-Cain scholarship. It said I was selected from the admissions pool. I had no idea what that meant. I thought it was spam. I called my older sister, pseudo-older sister Lauren, and asked her if she had any idea what this Morehead-Cain thing was, and she started crying on the phone.
And from there, Morehead’s application process, it felt like the first time that I was able to give a full picture of who I was based on the questions that were asked and the way that they asked them. And I remember leaving Finals Weekend thinking to myself, this is the first time I actually don’t know what I’m going to do if this doesn’t pan out. I tried to approach college admissions very open-handed. I do think it’s possible to land and orient well, whatever the circumstances may be. But it was the first time that I really, really desired something in admissions, and I’ll never forget, March ninth, 2018, 5:00 PM. I heard the yes from Morehead-Cain, and I signed my papers that night. Didn’t even wait to hear back from other schools.
(Stella)
That’s amazing. I had that same feeling of just... I had that same feeling of Morehead knows everything about me from this application. I talked about everything from my previous Outward Bound experience to what I was doing in high school. I did feel like they had the full picture of me. I was like, well, if they don’t want me, they have everything now. Exactly. Which is so cool. The incoming class, which I just got to meet at Final Selection Weekend, they just found out they received their scholarships and are in the process of deciding what outdoor leadership program to go on. I know that you decided to go on the Alaska trip. What made you decide to go on that trip?
(Kristina)
So, my family does not travel to places that don’t have outlets or flushing toilets. So, my NOLS experience was a true jumping straight into the deep end. And when I saw the list of courses, Alaska was the farthest away and the longest in duration. I strategically selected backpacking and not any additional mountaineering, given my fear of heights. And so, I gave myself one there, but I wanted it to be hard. And I knew that it was possible because there were decades of people who had gone before me. But I was really drawn to the idea of a challenge that was hand-selected for me seemingly.
(Stella)
And a lot of scholars have asked me or incoming scholars, about why Morehead has us go on this outdoor leadership. They’re a little nervous or anxious, similar to you. They had never done camping before, and Morehead is requiring them now to go on this long camping experience. What skills did you learn from your outdoor leadership that you still use today in maybe your role as partner?
(Kristina)
So, my NOLS course, with it being set in Alaska over the summer, there was nearly 24 hours of daylight. I think it was 22:30, and it got twilight-ty purple, blue in the sky from 3:00 to 5:30 a.m. But otherwise, it was bright and daytime, despite 13 days of straight rain, which we don’t speak about. But I experienced freedom like I never had before that, and freedom even from time itself. There was nothing really to stimulate me outside of just looking around and focusing on the singular goal of making it to my ex and making sure that my team and I were safe. So, bringing that level of focus and trying to cut out noise is so hard in a role that is ambiguous and requires me to seek out several opportunities in order for more opportunities to come, and work begets more work. And soon enough, I found myself having more opportunities than I could give a yes to. And I had to focus and ask myself, what is the most important thing here? And choosing that. In a similar way, I feel like I learned some of that initially on my NOLS course, and that led into my Carolina experience and onward from there.
(Stella)
I love that. And I am sure that the incoming scholars, which is crazy, the class of ‘29, can really go into their experience and hope that they have those same skills. I want to hear more about your minor in entrepreneurship, which I know we didn’t talk about as much this morning. That really calls me because you are in venture capital now. So, you did the minor in entrepreneurship from the Shuford program while you were at Carolina. What was the biggest lesson that you took away from these classes that even people that aren’t starting their own venture, it would be pertinent for them to learn?
(Kristina)
The entrepreneurship minor was strong in that it introduced me to the stories of several people who have, either successfully or unsuccessfully, started a company and scaled it. I heard war stories from them and parts about building a business that just didn’t surface in textbooks from the material that I read in class. And so while the Shuford program helped me to identify frameworks for mapping out a customer’s journey or thinking through human-centered design, which I think are important when building a product, really what was most helpful was getting in a room with people who had decades more of experience than me and being able to practice asking them questions and drawing insights from what they had to say. My entire job now is asking questions. I am a professional question asker, and it is my job to extract as much information from that founder, whether it be on their personal journey and experience prior to giving their yes to this startup or on the company itself and their vision for it. We need that information to make a discerning, strong investment decision of whether or not we are going to partner with them. And I first got to practice that with Shuford.
(Stella)
And you’ve talked all this morning about the questions you asked, and I love that that led you into maybe that stem of question asking is now really helping you in your current role at Eleven Tribes. So, speaking of Eleven Tribes, let’s explore venture capital. And when I first heard that you were a partner of a venture capital firm, to be totally honest, had no idea what that was and what that meant. And you even talked about this morning that you would not have known what that meant either when you were in college. So, for listeners who aren’t super familiar with venture capital, can you explain the VC approach at Eleven Tribes Ventures and more about what you do in your day to day?
(Kristina)
Absolutely. In venture capital, there are two core pieces to the business, and that is having capital to invest and having great founders and entrepreneurs to invest in. So, when I began in this industry, I knew very little outside of those two things. And Eleven Tribes was at a moment in its journey where I joined, and it was the managing partner and myself. The pitch was, come work for a startup that’s investing in startups. There was so much ambiguity, but with that came a lot of responsibility and opportunity to be creative with those two pieces of either attracting capital or attracting founders for us to invest in. So, at Eleven Tribes, how we think about owning our edge in the market in a particularly competitive landscape amongst emerging managers with less than 100 million under management. We are committed to not just maximizing the business outcome of that startup but also including this language of what we call the founder outcome. And so, for the history of venture capital, in the last 50 or so years, since it has started as an asset class and investment strategy, investors have focused solely on business outcomes.
And we measure those with exit valuations, ARR, cash flow, the like. And those are good things and worthy to strive for. And we certainly want to see our founders win on that side. But our belief is there is a part of the conversation that has historically gotten zero airtime that is more central to whether a company gets acquired or goes public on the stock market or not. And that is the founder piece. CB Insights and Harvard Business School did a study on why great founders have failed, why otherwise successful startups were wound down. And self-reported, 63% of those founders attributed failure to a people-related issue, whether it was burnout, substance abuse, sour investor relationships, co-founder conflict. The list goes on. And we’re like, why are no firms getting ahead of this or trying to take any proactive approach here? If we can mitigate some of the people issues and also invest in what happens to our teams as they grow and as they eventually walk away from their company. We think it’s not only going to be just the right thing to do, but also it will be helpful in generating a stronger financial return for our investors.
So, one thing that we hold ourselves accountable to as we are thinking about success across our portfolio on a quarterly or annual basis for the founder outcome is what’s the state of our founder’s most precious relationships? If they’re married, are they still together with that spouse? If they have children or friends, do those people know them and talk to them? Is there any peace in that founder’s life? What’s their health like? Physical, mental, spiritual health? Our team believes that those pieces of life are really the things that make life most worth living. And we have tried to form a strategy that brings strategic and thoughtful resources around protecting and fighting for our founder’s outcome. And what that looks like for us is dedicating 2% of capital on top of every check that we write that is non-dilutive to the founder and their team for them to spend on founder resilience activities. So that can look like therapy or coaching or co-founder health coaches, financial planners, whatever that founder needs to invest in themselves, yes, as a leader within the context of their company, but just even more broadly as a human being. Because we know that if that person is healthy and cared for and able to wake up on a Friday morning and run in the way that’s going to be required of them, the company has a much greater chance of enduring the 5, 8, 10 years that it often takes to exit their startup.
(Stella)
I love that. Not only do you guys question traditional venture capital norms, but you invest in it, and you prioritize that. You talked about this morning how that actually gives you guys the edge, Eleven Tribes, over some other venture capital firms, and I think that is so cool. As someone who is younger on your team, and in such a high position at the company, when you are similarly questioning maybe conventional approaches to venture capital, how do you balance respecting the older colleagues you have, but also still continuing to question without disrespecting anybody that is maybe older or have more years of experience than you do in the field?
(Kristina)
I have been wrestling with this for the last six or so months since I’ve stepped into this partnership role. And I try to consider my team’s personality assessments and workplace aptitudes before I think about trying to build internal conviction with an idea or a new way of doing things. So, I’m extra mindful of this given that I am the only female on my team and the youngest by a long shot. So, one thing about me is that I am a challenger personality type. I am an eight on the Enneagram. So it is energizing and natural for me to be able to take something at face value, probe a little deeper, and take in the surrounding landscape of other firms and what they’re doing well, and try to cast a vision, set a bar for us to take the good work that we’ve done and strengthen it, make it better. This has been difficult at times to share with my team in certain settings, given that resources and time is constrained. It never feels like we have enough time in the day. And so, to throw in a new vision that is more 30,000 feet above the day-to-day work, it can be poorly received at times, if not conscious of the environment that it’s shared in.
So, this is something that I spend much time thinking about weekly in how to go about doing great work and ensuring that our firm is ever raising the bar.
(Stella)
I love that. I love that you think about the context of the situation. I think that’s really important. It’s, again, “there you are” rather than, “here I am.” I love that even in that role of being in charge of something, you still are recognizing the importance of other people. Let’s talk about how, and maybe I should have asked this first, but let’s talk about how you became partner. I know it was something you talked about this morning that you weren’t expecting, but obviously, there was something that made you stand out among your employers that other people didn’t have. How can listeners like me who are about to enter the workforce, enter corporate America in a new job setting, how can we best stand out to our employees, or how should we approach entering a new workplace?
(Kristina)
From day one, I have considered Eleven Tribes as if I was an owner in the company. And this is also a major credit to my team and my managing partner in how he has been open-handed with the organization and the vision for it and inviting me in. And it was clear throughout my interview process that this role would not be a traditional one. Instead, there would be much opportunity to not just take existing systems and make them better, but to create systems that did not exist previously because the firm was young and budding and up and coming. So, I have felt like I have extreme ownership and lots of responsibility from the first day. And because I truly believed in our thesis and how it stood out and differentiated in the market, and I could see on every founder call how founders would soften and how it would land with them, it only created more and more buy-in from my side that, wow, I’ve stumbled upon something that is good and getting better every day, that is having real impact and creating value within this industry, despite us being still very small fish in a sea of many, many fish.
So, because I took on that mindset of building and owning from day one, and I tried to show up intentionally as a whole Kristina at work. I never felt like I had to compartmentalize, okay, this is my personal life. This is my professional life. I felt like I was able to come to the office, be myself, ask the questions that I would naturally ask. And then that was even better received amongst my team and everyone else in the Chicago tech and Midwest ecosystem. It was clear that there was something animating me more than just professional success or financial monetary gain. It was a true belief, and it took a long time to find an organization that I truly believed in and that I believed in more and more as I spent time at the organization.
(Stella)
I think that is so important. You talked about for one of your summers, you didn’t believe in the mission. You worked in private equity, and that wasn’t something that you believed in and the way that your employees were going about it. And I think it’s so you can tell by the way that you talk about Eleven Tribes that you so strongly believe in that mission and are so passionate about that job. And I hope that I can find a similar passion and listeners can find a similar passion in whatever they’re doing in the day to day. So, we’re wrapping up a little bit, but I’m curious what you would define after, and I know you haven’t been in your role for that long, but what you would say is your biggest achievement thus far. And obviously, you have many, many years of impact left. But so far in your career, you’ve had lots of amazing achievements, and I’m wondering what you would say is your biggest one.
(Kristina)
What’s funny about venture capital is that perception is reality, and there are long, long feedback loops. And to be honest, relatively few wins. Most companies, if things are going well, will be around 4, 5, 8, 10 years. And I am two and a half years in and still seeing the fruit of the investment decisions that I’ve helped to make. But by and large, more so than any of the pieces that could be seen as vanity metrics based on what others have said about me or the firm, working with the people that I have been able to bring through diligence and invest in, founders like Annie and Morgan of GoNanas or Brandon of Alloy or John of New Trade, I think about those people and the privilege it is that we get to be along for their journey and participate in their upside and be someone that they call in good times and in troughs. That is the biggest achievement to date is finding those people and establishing a relationship with them that we do today.
(Stella)
Of course, you took the humble approach to this question, and I love that you talked about the people. I do want to talk about the fact that you were recognized by Forbes 30 Under 30 for 2025 under the venture capital category. What is it like and what did you feel when you found out that you were put on this list alongside such other incredible leaders at such a young age?
(Kristina)
I was so surprised by the way that I felt when a friend texted me in all caps, “YOU MADE THE LIST,” when I was in the middle of a team meeting. And in the years prior, from call it 2020 through 2024, every time the list was dropped, I would study up on who made it and what their stories were, what their background was, not to copy or emulate necessarily, but to just at least have data points of who are these individuals, what outcomes are they driving, what are they giving their yeses to, and maybe I can draw some inspiration from them. When I received the news, I felt surprisingly apathetic and a little hollow in that it was something that, sure, a previous Kristina would have been enthralled to receive. But at that time of receiving it, there were so many other things, really in my personal life, that I was thirsty and yearning for and putting in intentional time and effort to go after. Being on a mountaintop moment and getting that recognition from Forbes really put into perspective what is valuable and enduring in life. And so don’t get me wrong, I am extremely grateful to be included on the list and to have Eleven Tribes’ name mentioned in a publication like that and all the opportunities that have come from it.
But at the same time, it made me desire more dinners at home and more trips spent visiting Atlanta where my family lives or more time in church where I get to pray and I get filled up. And as I think about my life and what I’m most proud of, not necessarily my greatest achievement, it is some of those quieter, more hidden pieces that is not going to be affirmed by many people that I will have to fight to keep at and to carve out space and time for, especially as more opportunities come. But those are the pieces that I have enjoyed and loved the most, which was just shocking to see when the Forbes news came.
(Stella)
I love that. I know that you had talked about your senior year of college. You felt like you had missed out on some things when you were so focused on recruiting or your next thing or your achievement. I love that in that moment. It surprised me, but it is amazing that you were able to take a realization and you realized that maybe this isn’t exactly what life is about, and maybe it is about being with family, which is your exact message that you are instilling with Eleven Tribes and your founders is, what is life really worth living for? I love that for you, it wasn’t maybe the Forbes 30 Under 30, but it was having dinner at home, going to church, being with your family. I love that. I know we just talked about not talking about your next thing, but I am curious about you. I feel like you have really explored this company that you have been in. You are now towards the top. You have made this. You had this huge accomplishment at work. What does your life look like for the next five years? Where would you like to be?
What would you want to prioritize for the next five years? I know you talked about intentional reflection. And what is your goal for what’s coming next?
(Kristina)
This is the first time in my history with Eleven Tribes that the firm is well-capitalized. So, we just closed our second fund at 46 million, ahead of our ambitious $40 million goal, which we are so grateful, so humbled to have new capital to deploy. And so now I have a modest budget to put to work. And given the resonance from founders in the industry of our thesis and knowing that we have just begun and barely scratched the surface of innovating and doing something new and unconventional in this world of venture capital, I think that there is a lot of runway with Eleven Tribes in this role. When I joined as a partner and stepped into that position, what I was bringing to the partnership that my teammates weren’t necessarily focused on already is strategic growth and partnership development. And so, I have some visions and major dreams that could shake up and be refreshing in the world of venture capital. One of which is an idea for a founder museum, the first physical space for people to come and experience the journey of a founder with, yes, all of the insurmountable highs and the incredibly low lows and this place where people can come and see the stories of the true cost of building something, not just how much money they spent in that last month, but what the founder had to sacrifice in order to achieve what they did at their company.
I think that that could be really powerful, and that’s one of the ideas that I’d love to chase down and may even have to strategically fundraise for outside of just our allocation of capital. And then personally, and this ties back to my experience in Georgia and something that’s followed me from Chapel Hill and even now to Chicago, this idea that loneliness is prevalent and real and we are becoming less connected and less able to even converse with each other and ask questions where the other party feels seen and the potential for a long-term friendship is made possible. Personally, I would love to have some wing of Eleven Tribes, whether that be some care foundation, spun up to invest in founders who are trying to tackle this issue, as wicked of a problem as it is with being able to identify root causes and create sustainable business models. I think there needs to be more innovation here, and hopefully, it is work that is done in this broader trend of people correcting their relationships with devices and how we think about being more human.
(Stella)
Thank you so much for sharing that. It was so incredibly refreshing to have this chat with you. I was super excited after hearing you chat this morning. Just for anyone going into business or venture capital who is worried about maybe these traditional approaches, worried about not finding themselves, I love that you really talked about there are companies out there that are doing good things and challenging those traditional conventions. And I just want to thank you so much for being here. I am sure that listeners are really going to enjoy this episode and thank you again.
(Kristina)
Thank you, Stella. This has been such a joy.