Ciara A Burnham

Ciara Burnham is a seasoned investor, operator, and strategist with more than twenty years of experience in building growth businesses in financial services. Ciara is a partner at QED Investors, a leading venture capital firm that actively supports high growth businesses that use information to compete and win. QED invests across the US, UK, and Latin America, and has backed notable next-generation companies in the financial technology sector such as Credit Karma, SoFi, Prosper, Avant, Clear Score, and Green Sky. At QED, Ciara focuses on emerging growth companies in the U.S. financial services ecosystem. Prior to joining QED, Ciara was a senior managing director with Evercore, the global investment bank, where she worked broadly across the firm’s businesses. Ciara joined Evercore shortly after its inception, and played a leadership role in the build out of the firm’s presence on a global basis. Most recently, she served as CEO of Evercore Trust, a nationally chartered trust bank with over $50 billion in assets, where she led a turnaround of the business culminating in a successful sale of the institutional assets. Previously, she was responsible for strategy and corporate development, leading initiatives including launching new lines of business, executing acquisitions for the firm, raising capital, and developing the international platform. Additionally, Ciara advised large corporate clients in the investment banking advisory business and held leadership roles in the investment management segment. Earlier in her career, Ciara was an equity research analyst at Sanford Bernstein and a consultant with McKinsey & Co. Ciara received an AB from Princeton University and an MBA from Columbia Business School. She serves as a trustee of the nonprofit Education Development Center and as a member of the advisory boards of the Program for Financial Studies and the Tamer Center for Social Enterprise at Columbia Business School. Ciara is a member of the Dean’s Advisory Council of Princeton University and the New York Women’s Forum.