Originally published here.

Stepping into an existing corporate venture capital (CVC) fund is one of the more nuanced challenges in venture today. Unlike building a fund from scratch, new leaders inherit not only a portfolio but a set of relationships, expectations, and often an embedded role within a much larger corporate organization.

The question is not just what strategy to pursue, but how much to change, if at all.

Across recent conversations on Corporate Venturing Insider with Laurel Buckner of BHP Ventures, Annie Goman of Btomorrow Ventures, and Mike Smeed of InMotion Ventures, a pattern emerges: there is no single playbook. But there are consistent principles that determine success.

For some leaders, stepping in means resetting the system.

When Mike Smeed took over InMotion Ventures, Jaguar Land Rover’s venture arm, the mandate was clear: bring the fund closer to the business. What followed was a full strategic reset.

“Fund One was exploration,” Smeed explained. “Fund Two… was about integration. We reset the thesis, changed almost everything, and made sure our investments were directly tied to JLR’s future.”

The strategy shift redefined how InMotion Ventures created value for its mothership.

Today, Smeed notes, every recent investment connects back to the parent company in a tangible way.

Annie Goman faced a similar moment at Btomorrow Ventures, though her approach began with restraint rather than action. Upon stepping into the role, she paused investing entirely.

“I told my team we’re going slow in order to go fast,” she said.

For six to nine months, Goman and her team reassessed the fund’s direction, gathering feedback from internal stakeholders and founders. The result was a redesigned strategy tightly aligned with British American Tobacco’s (BAT) broader transformation.

That reset ultimately enabled what she describes as a “high-alignment, high-autonomy” model, one where clarity of mandate unlocks execution speed.

In both venture leaders’ experiences, ensuring that the venture arm was aligned with the broader organization's strategy was crucial to starting on the right foot.

But not every situation calls for reinvention.

When Laurel Buckner stepped into BHP Ventures, she encountered a very different reality: a high-functioning, well-aligned, and mature investment platform.

“I really felt like I stepped into a car that was already traveling very fast,” Buckner said.

Instead of imposing a new strategy, Buckner focused on understanding what was already working. Her first priority was not action, but orientation.

“In the first 30 days, it was getting my arms around the folks that were already on the team… and understanding who the people within BHP were that would be important for me to meet.”

The strategy itself remained largely intact.

Buckner’s approach highlights a critical but often overlooked part for some incoming managers: changing a venture fund is not inherently valuable in and of itself. In some cases, the highest-leverage move is to preserve momentum and evolve selectively.

Despite these different paths, all three leaders point to a shared set of fundamentals when stepping into an existing fund.

First, map the stakeholders. Corporate venture does not operate in isolation. Success depends on understanding who holds influence across strategy, business units, and innovation functions and building those relationships early.

Buckner’s early focus on internal alignment reflects this reality, particularly within a 90,000-person organization where ventures must integrate across multiple layers.

Second, learn the portfolio and strategy. A venture fund’s credibility is tied to its existing investments. New leaders must quickly understand not just what the portfolio is, but how it does or does not connect to the business.

For Smeed, this meant ensuring every new investment had a clear relationship to Jaguar Land Rover. For Goman, it meant reassessing whether the portfolio strategy aligned with BAT’s future categories.

Third, define the role of the venture arm. Is the fund exploratory? Strategic? Financial? A bridge to M&A?

Incoming managers like Smeed, Goman, and Buckner assessed the venture unit's mandate and the expectations that came with it. They were able to adapt by repositioning or reintegrating their funds while also building on what was already in place.

Each model works, but only when clearly defined. What matters is not the model itself, but whether it consistently creates tangible value for both the business and the startups involved.

Ultimately, stepping into a corporate venture fund is less about choosing the right strategy and more about diagnosing the system you inherit.

Push too hard for change, and you risk breaking what works. Move too slowly, and you risk irrelevance.

The best leaders strike a balance. They know when to reset, when to refine, and when to simply listen.

As Buckner’s experience suggests, sometimes the job is not to take the wheel, but rather to understand the speed, direction, and terrain of the vehicle already in motion.