Cassandra Carothers is the Director of Corporate Venture Capital at Sekisui America Corporation, where she is driving the expansion of SEKISUI Chemical’s global corporate venturing platform. She invests in industrial and frontier technologies including aerospace, advanced manufacturing, robotics, next-gen compute, energy, advanced materials, and life sciences.
Previously, Cassandra founded Departure Capital, a VC firm investing in frontier tech companies building existential resilience. She has also held investment roles at Millennium New Horizons, Bay Bridge Ventures and Spock Ventures, and helped build a deep tech venture strategy within a multi-generational family office.
Before venture, Cassandra was an operator, and helped innovative companies bring complex technologies to market. She began her career in consulting and advised more than 1,000 corporate and government leaders across Asia-Pacific, Europe and North America on emerging technologies and global strategy. She is an active mentor at Creative Destruction Lab, and co-chairs IEEE Entrepreneurship’s Hard Tech Venture Summit program.
Cassandra holds a B.A. in International Relations from Brown University, where she played D1 varsity golf, and an MBA.