VC investor Bree Kirkham joins F5 Collective as chief commercial officer

Bree Kirkham has joined Tracey Warren’s F5 Collective, a fund established to close the gender funding gap and support female founders, as chief commercial officer.

Kirkham joins F5 Collective having most recently been a general partner at Flying Fox Ventures. She has more than eight years of experience in investments, operational leadership, and international expansion.

Warren praised Kirkham as having a robust foundation in driving growth, innovation, and value creation for entrepreneurs and investors alike.

“As Chief Commercial Officer Bree will bring strategic nous to growing F5 Collective as well as providing our founders with strategic advice,” the F5 CEO said.

“Bree has helped brands like ClassPass launch in Australia, and brands like Uber and Airbnb scale in Australia. She understands how to help startups grow into new markets and how to build relationships with big corporate customers.

“In her role as Chief Commercial Officer, Bree’s first assignment will be to grow the corporate strategy we launched last year. We are calling on industry and corporations to join the F5 Collective Alliance. The alliance will encourage collaboration and knowledge sharing between industry and female founded ventures.

“Startups bring innovation, agility and fresh ideas while corporates and industry bring resources, scalability and market access. We believe this collaboration has the potential to ignite disruptive innovations, transform industries, provide critical pilots and use cases female founders need to help create equal access to funding.”

F5 Collective invests in globally ambitious, women building high-growth tech ventures across the following themes: Tech shaping our future + Social & Environmental Impact in APAC.

Warren said it’s vital that Australian VC funds back women to succeed here first of all, to help the nation thrive.

“If we are not investing in our own female founders they will find capital from funds outside Australia, helping grow other countries’ economies,” she said.

“There’s leading-edge thinking happening in emerging economies across the global south. They want to dominate the startup scene globally, and investing in women is a key part of that strategy. The time for Australian funders to act on this emerging trend is now. By not investing in women founders today we are making a 20 or 30 year error.”

Bree Kirkham said her new role plays to her passions of backing female founders.

“It’s extremely fulfilling to become part of a mission that resonates with my deepest passion – supporting women,” she said.

“As Chief Commercial Officer, I am eager to fuse my diverse experience across investments, operational leadership, and international expansion to champion female founders.

“At F5 we have a genuine opportunity to create generational change – to innovate, collaborate and empower women. We have a big goal and we will work incredibly hard to achieve that goal.

“I often speak out about the need for corporates to lean in and I encourage corporates who share a passion for empowering women to join us on this journey. Together, let’s not just talk about rewriting the narrative for female entrepreneurs…let’s actually do it.”