ann leamon
senior advisor
Ann Leamon co-founded Bella Private Markets in 2010 and served as its Chief Operating Officer for 10 years. In that role, she managed the firm’s projects, worked closely with clients, and organized the team’s resources to meet their specific needs. In addition to overseeing the firm’s daily operations, Ann also directly authored many of Bella’s reports, and developed and taught custom programs for Bella’s clients. As of October 2020, she moved to a Senior Advisor role, in which she continues to assist the firm in research, writing, and editing.
In 2000, Ann joined Dr. Josh Lerner and Dr. Felda Hardymon in restructuring Harvard Business School’s Venture Capital and Private Equity (VCPE) class, the school’s most over-subscribed second year offering. For a dozen years, she wrote all the cases for that class, capturing the experiences and insights of top global investors and entrepreneurs.
“Everything goes better with lunch.”
With Dr. Lerner and Dr. Hardymon, Ann has co-authored three editions of The Venture Capital and Private Equity Casebook (J. Wiley, 2005, 2009, 2012) as well as Venture Capital, Private Equity, and the Financing of Entrepreneurship, (J. Wiley, 2012). During her 14 years at HBS, Ann wrote over 120 cases and other pieces of teaching material.
Prior to joining HBS, Ann spent nine years in industry. She started her career at Central Maine Power as an economic and load forecaster. In that position, she led an industry-award-winning project on the use of conservation to offset the construction of transmission lines.
Ann holds a BA with Honors in German from the University of Kings College in Halifax, Nova Scotia, where she received the Governor General’s medal for excellence. She also earned an MA in Economics from the University of Montana and an MFA in writing from Bennington Writing Seminars.
