The first thing you notice about investment and innovation expert Vera Futorjanski is her warm-hearted smile. The second is her compelling optimism and passion when she speaks about inclusiveness.
As Founder and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Veritas Ventures, this Dubai-based go-getter supports female empowerment initiatives. Vera describes Veritas Ventures as a global strategic advisory firm with a network of experts across continents.
“We support governments, corporates and start-ups with innovative strategies, access to deal-flow and a global investor landscape, investments opportunities and digital transformation.”
urrently, she’s especially excited about building Beyond, an ‘exclusive membership network with web3 elements for female leaders and accomplished women across all sectors.’
Its biggest aim is to ‘create a community for women who are always giving, inspiring and mentoring, but rarely have a space where they receive, are among equals, and feel they truly belong.’
Vera’s eyes light up when remarking, ‘we, as women, give time, support and kindness,’ adding these things are not appreciated and are very difficult to reward as they can’t be measured.
“That’s why at Beyond, I want to introduce tokens to acknowledge and reward non-tangible qualities such as kindness, empathy, etc. that many of us women have and constantly give; and also create our own membership NFT that gives women benefits globally.”
Dubai, UAE Fervently opposed to the ‘whole age debate,’ Vera ‘finds it terrible that when a woman reaches a certain age, it’s as if she disappears from the planet.’
“I really want to change that, so Beyond will do a reverse mentoring to help older women understand and learn about web3 first. Then, I want to bring more women on board and into high-level positions while having the support of the community. There’s a long way to go and I must still build the network, but that’s the goal.”
As a perpetually curious enthusiast of web3 and NFTs, Vera’s background and career path are both fascinating and diverse. She jokes about her surname ‘sounding like the future,’ since many people have asked whether she was hired for her name or changed it because she’s working in innovation and the future technology space.
Her earlier career included being a consultant in various divisions of the European Union in Brussels. Seeking a much a faster pace, Vera moved to Berlin and joined Rocket Internet, managing their global communications in different regions. Despite not fitting the typical “white male profile,” she persevered, moving to Dubai alone as a single woman. There, she pitched the idea of a beauty start-up to Rocket Internet and fought hard until eventually becoming its then-only female founder in the Middle East.
A career change to the Dubai Future Foundation in 2015 signaled Vera’s first involvement in blockchain strategy. As head of global communications, she was also a core member of the Dubai Future Accelerators, a high-level Dubai government initiative accelerating innovation within various Government departments and by doing so, diversifying the economy to a knowledge-based economy away from relying on oil.
She then broke into the Venture Capital space and managed the Middle East region as the Director of Innovation for 500 Start-ups (now 500Global), which led to Vera’s first trips to Saudi Arabia, where she was part of the core team to launch Saudi’s first international accelerator to boost the entrepreneurial sector in Riyadh. She continues traveling to Saudi Arabia on a regular basis which she very much enjoys. In fact, with her new network she is building, Beyond, Vera envisions bringing women from the Middle East together at a big table for them to realize they are much more equal than they are different, and with that to be able to contribute to more peace in the Middle East. What Vera does not lack is certainly big ambitious dreams and goals.
Vera finds it difficult to define the Metaverse in simple terms because ‘it’s something that doesn’t really exist yet.’ However, it’s clearly ‘much more than just building avatars or escaping into a different world.’
“It’s just an evolved internet, an extension of the real world we have now. However, we must keep in mind that without humanity, the Metaverse won’t exist. So, it’s especially important to know who’s building the Metaverse, who are the people behind it ensuring ownership of one’s data.”
Vera stresses it’s vital to make the Metaverse inclusive to incorporate ‘all the different genders, affiliations, ways of thinking, nationalities and world geographies.’
She’s enthusiastic about increased interoperability in the space as big corporates start talking more to smaller players, although she envisages, they’ll find it difficult to simply release their own established databases to startups.
Vera describes herself as ‘a generalist rather than an expert in only one field.’
However, years ago, she was an expert – as a professional Argentine tango dancer – wistfully describing dancing as her ultimate happiness until a serious foot injury ended her dancing career.
“It took me two years to recover emotionally and physically, but traumatic as it was back then, I wouldn’t be where I am now if that hadn’t happened.”
Growing up in Hamburg, Germany, Vera speaks f ive languages fluently and has lived in 10 countries, loving traveling to new places she’s never been to before. And she’s following her own advice, ‘not being afraid to start over,’ staying curious, enjoying meditating in nature and taking breaks to recharge, quipping ‘it’s even better if it’s with a rosé, a stunning sunset, and good company.’
Now contentedly living in Dubai, Vera is inspired by innovative and forward-thinking governments creating strategies, like the Dubai government’s recent announcement of a Metaverse strategy to create thousands of new jobs in a 30-trillion-dollar market.”
That’s the advantage of ‘being an emerging market instead of an old regulated market, like in many European countries, because ‘in Dubai, if they want change, they make it happen.’
With her characteristic optimism that ‘web3 is about creating communities,’ Vera sums up her excitement for the future, “I’d love it to be more inclusive for everyone – for us to understand each other better and communicate with each other more, because I really believe this will build a better future for everyone.”
