Mark Phillips is the Founder and Managing Partner of 11 Tribes Ventures. In his role, he supports the team’s efforts across all aspects of the firm including investing, fundraising, and operations. His personal passion lies in helping those around him – whether it’s the 11 Tribes team or the founders they invest in – discover and activate their unique purpose in life. These moments of connection and clarity are the most rewarding aspects of his work.
Mark’s journey to venture capital was anything but conventional. He began his career as a strategy consultant, specializing in mergers and acquisitions. Recognizing that the ceaseless travel was not a sustainable path, he pivoted to pursue his MBA at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.
While at Booth, Mark embarked on his entrepreneurial journey by launching his first company. The experience that followed was a profound lesson in the volatile and unpredictable nature of the founder’s path, ultimately culminating with the company’s failure. While grappling with the disappointment of this business outcome, Mark found himself even more shaken by the identity crisis that had crept its way into his mind. He was crushed under the weight of being a failed founder. It was in this season of reflection that he began to grasp the meaning of the ancient truth “what does it benefit a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul?”
Motivated to help others avoid, or at least mitigate, this same pain, Mark set out to build 11 Tribes, the firm where capital and care are focused on the founder. Today, Mark lives in the western suburbs of Chicago with his wife Emily and their three boys. He is learning to love the quiet of the early morning, has become a passionate consumer of all things leadership, and is fascinated by what he calls the power law of people.
