From Tragedy to Transformation: How Jenny Stojkovic's "Why Not Me" Philosophy is Reshaping Venture Capital

Less than 5% of VCs are women. Jenny Stojkovic isn't asking for permission to join them—she's rewriting the rules entirely.

Written by: Phoebe Gill

Less than 5% of venture capital general partners are women. That statistic alone should stop founders in their tracks. But for Jennifer Stojkovic, it’s not a barrier, it’s a call to action, one that fuels her drive to reshape the industry.

Once a Silicon Valley lobbyist, Jenny has since redefined her career and is changing what leadership in venture capital can look like. She’s a bestselling author, the founder of the global Vegan Women Summit, public speaker, and the force behind Joyful Ventures, a new VC fund backing climate innovation with purpose and precision.

And the engine driving Jenny? A simple, deeply personal philosophy born from tragedy: Why not me?

Jenny isn’t another run-of-the-mill motivational speaker; our time with her made it clear that she’s the real deal, here to challenge herself and the industry, building a new, more equitable vision for who gets funded, who leads, and who wins.

The Defining Moment

Jenny’s success doesn't begin with the connections that so often pepper rising stars in Silicon Valley. She didn’t grow up with access to insider networks, elite prep schools, or family office introductions.

Her journey starts somewhere far more human, and far more painful. It begins with loss.

In her early twenties, her husband’s best friend was murdered. The event wasn’t just devastating, it was life-altering. The kind of moment that forces a deep reckoning.

Jenny, just recently married, was still in the early stages of her adult life and career, and found herself facing something that most people never dream of having to confront, let alone try to grow from.

In the aftermath, she was faced with a choice—to let the trauma define her, or to use it as fuel.

Here is where most people might falter in life, weighed down by the sadness, but Jenny saw an invitation to begin again and become bigger, more intentional.

Rather than descend into hopelessness, together with her husband, they made a bold, conscious decision, to transform their pain into purpose.

"You can live a really really big life and go for it, and you might fail, or you can keep doing what you're doing." Jenny states.

Her experiences with loss reshaped her view on risk and failure, particularly in a male-dominated industry that often undervalues women’s leadership. She began to make decisions not based on a fear of failure, but on the future regret of not having tried at all. The thought of looking back and wondering “what if” became more frightening than any risk.

"This is your one shot," she says. "You’ve got one shot to live a meaningful life. So why waste it playing small?"

Life is finite, and Jenny Stojkovic is making it count.

The Birth of "Why Not Me"

The clarity that came out of Jenny’s darkest chapter didn’t fade, it morphed into a permanent mindset that would guide every major decision she’d make going forward.

"Why Not Me" isn’t just an inspiring quote; it’s the lens through which Jenny moves through the world. It shapes every decision she makes, challenging herself and others to redefine what’s possible, no matter the obstacles

“For me, being able to achieve things that are not traditionally achieved by people like me from backgrounds like mine. I think that I have been able to build the confidence and the attitude to learn and adapt and be flexible. I've changed my career multiple times. I've tried new things multiple times. I've been able to succeed continually upwards in a way that I think people generally just kind of count themselves out.

“They just assume they're not going to be able to accomplish things because other people in their position haven't.

“So, they count themselves out, they're their own worst enemy. I've really focused on reversing that general opinion of myself, and I lead with the ability of Why Not Me in every single thing I do.”

Jenny’s career changes are nothing short of inspiring, starting off with a powerful lobbying career in Silicon Valley representing tech giants like Google and Facebook before pivoting to start the Vegan Women Summit in early 2020, global events and media organization.

VWS spans six continents reaching tens of thousands of women, with the mission to connect and empower women founders to build a kinder world through sustainable ventures and startups. (On a personal level, Jenny is also a committed vegan, just one of the ways she walks the walk she’s loudly talking about.)

Stojkovic created VWS to address a concerning lack of diversity in the future leaders of the food industry, noting on a podcast interview that, "there was no women around, there was no people of color around. Unfortunately, many of the conversations that were happening in the future of food look very much like all the conversations that I had in the tech industry where, you know, I was the only woman at the table most of the time."

Disrupting the food tech industry might be enough for the average person, but Jenny was just getting started. In 2023, she co-founded Joyful Ventures, a $23 million climate innovation fund built on values as much as vision. Joyful Ventures is an early-stage climate fund focused on food technology backing the development of sustainable proteins from cultivated beef burgers to plant-based salmon.

Why Not Me is Jenny’s personal mantra, yes, but it’s clear that it’s part of Joyful Venture’s company ethos. A way to ask better questions about who gets to found companies and who gets funded, and why.

Challenging Systemic Biases in Venture Capital

Despite her success, Jenny faces systemic biases that are still pervasive in venture capital. Women founders are often questioned about their capabilities, and their achievements are minimized through assumptions about their support systems.

During our interview, Jenny sharply points out those biases and how they’ve even affected her.

"One of the most searched things about me, rather than my career is who my husband is,” Jenny states clearly. “People assume if a woman has gotten to a high place in business, her husband helped her get there."

That same assumption seeps into the boardroom and pitch rooms. She’s witnessed countless instances where women CEOs are mistakenly treated as executive assistants, or dismissed entirely.

Jenny doesn’t respond with bitterness. Instead, she checks her own blind spots. She knows that bias can run in every direction, and she’s determined not to replicate what she’s experienced.

"I really kind of think about any sort of biases that I might be bringing into the conversation when I'm hearing a pitch."

In her view, unconscious bias is one of the biggest missed opportunities in VC. But it's not just about fairness, it's good business too.

One of the most searched things about me, rather than my career is who my husband is.”

Investing in the Underestimated

Jenny doesn’t just believe in backing women founders, she’s also proving that it pays.

"Women founders return a 63% higher exit valuation than male founders." More than half of her portfolio is made up of female-led companies. And it’s not due to a diversity mandate, it’s because women are delivering.

In her eyes, systemic bias isn’t just unjust, it’s inefficient. In a world where only 3% of global investment dollars go to female founders, great ideas are being passed over because they come in unexpected packages.

And that’s exactly where Jenny sees opportunity.

Joyful Ventures is betting on the overlooked, the underestimated, and the dismissed, and turning those bets into thriving businesses. Ranging from Jellatech, a biotech company redefining collagen production and founded by Stephanie Michelse, to Orbillion, disrupting the cultivated meat industry with Patricia Bubner as its CEO.

Jenny’s investing thesis is refreshingly simple: bet on talent, not tropes. She’s less interested in pedigree than in potential, and it’s becoming clear that it pays off.

The Leadership Dimension

If there’s one glaring red flag to watch out for when evaluating a founder, according to Jenny, it’s a big ego.

"I look for low ego leaders. That’s super important." This piqued our interest: “Is it hard to find low ego in this industry as a VC?” we asked.

“The industry is, I think, a few years ago, when we were still in a VC bubble, you saw a lot more of that. I think that one of the things people say is a downturn is a good thing because it gets rid of all the bad companies, the bad products, the bad leaders. And so today I don't come across that as much, because now that the market is depressed a little bit, it has created a lot more humility for VCs as well. It's way harder to be a VC now. Down markets really show resilience, and how much people are able to persevere.

“And I think that those key indicators are something that will eventually be a part of whether you make it or not, in one way or another. If you have a leader that doesn't listen to you at a seed stage about your ideas, if they discount you, they're not gonna change when they're a Series D leader, and they've got 500 people underneath them. It will only amplify the worst attributes of the founder. So, who they are at Seed is a small mirror of who they will be down the line.”

For Jenny, being a founder isn’t just about building a great product, it’s about how you lead people through the process. She believes that passion should show up in your leadership style, in how you support your team, how you listen, and how you navigate challenges without letting ego take the wheel.

Women Founder Wednesday: Visibility as Strategy

I’m quickly learning how passionately Jenny advocates doing the right thing when it comes to business, but also how much she advocates for women. And nowhere is that more obvious than Jenny’s Women Founder Wednesday.

A simple but powerful idea, born from the statistic that over 50% of CEO media coverage focuses on one male CEO, Jenny launched something simple but powerful: Women Founder Wednesday.

Each week, she highlights a different woman leading in business. And not just the usual suspects, but founders from every background, region, and industry.

“We reach 50 to 60 million impressions a year. Unfortunately, for a lot of people, it’s the first time they’ve heard these stories."

The idea behind Women Founder Wednesday is to normalize what shouldn’t be, and never should have been rare - women at the helm of powerful, profitable companies.

Representation isn’t just about fairness, it’s about showing young women all the different ways you can be a CEO.

Beyond Personal Success: Creating Systemic Change

Even though Joyful Ventures backs mostly female-led startups, nearly all of Jenny’s limited partners are men. That discrepancy isn’t by design, it’s a reflection of the deeper, systemic issues we face as a society.

“The reality is, most VCs are men, and most people that fund VCs are men as Limited Partners,” she explains. “The majority of women are, I don’t want to say uneducated, but they lack awareness of VC as an investment opportunity.”

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For many women, investing in a venture fund simply isn’t on the radar. Culturally, investing, especially in high-risk, high-reward assets like VC, has long been seen as a male-dominated territory.

Instead, Jenny points out, women who have access to capital often direct their resources into philanthropy, believing that’s the most effective way to create change.

“But the truth is,” she says, “impact investing can be as effective, or even more effective, than philanthropic donations when aligned with a social or environmental goal.”

That’s why Jenny isn’t just changing who gets funded, she’s working to change who funds.

With the largest intergenerational wealth transfer in global history underway, as trillions of dollars are shifting from baby boomers to millennials (many of them women), she sees a window of opportunity to educate and empower a new class of female LPs.

Meanwhile, she’s pushing for smarter startup building through what is a newer concept called “seed strapping”, when startups raise an initial round to get off the ground, then bootstrap the rest.

“You need that initial boost to get off,” Jenny notes. “But with AI and other efficiencies, you’re not going to need to continually raise rounds.”

To her, this is just another way Why Not Me scales from an individual philosophy to a collective power that is reshaping the venture capital ecosystem with both who gets funded and who holds the capital.

Conclusion

Jenny Stojkovic’s story so far isn’t a conventional founder tale. It’s not about Ivy League networks or unicorn valuations. It’s about something more powerful, turning pain into purpose, conviction into action, and building businesses in alignment with your values.

For every founder who’s been overlooked, every woman who’s been mistaken as an EA, Jenny is asking them one simple question.

Why not you?

Author

Phoebe is an SEO specialist, content marketer, and host of The Beginner's SEO Podcast, based in Sydney, Australia. She spent her twenties traveling across South America before settling in Sydney, where she’s spent the last seven years helping businesses grow. When she's not talking or writing about digital marketing, you’ll likely find her at a dance class or soaking up the sun at one of Sydney’s many beaches.

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