Daniel Becker

Impact Venture Capital

In his role at Impact, Dan focuses on strategy, early-stage media investments, and corporate consulting. His extensive experience with corporate venture and innovation programs provides Impact perspective to its platform of corporate venture services. Currently, he serves as Board Director to Watchwith and Advisor to MOVL (acquired by Samsung).

In addition to Impact, Dan is Vice President of Strategy and Corporate Development at Gracenote, and its parent Tribune Media. He works on capital expenditure projects, acquisitions, and investments in the entertainment data and technologies markets.

Dan was previously with Samsung Electronics. He started at headquarters in South Korea as a member of the strategy planning team and helped establish its corporate development group. He transferred to the Bay Area as Director to kick-start investments with the new Open Innovation Fund and run strategy and corporate development for the new Media Solution Center.

Earlier, Dan was a management consultant with Accenture's Media and Entertainment practice where he provided strategy and operations execution on pioneering new media projects for industry clients, including Discovery, Disney, WebMD, Cable Labs, Verizon, Telstra, and The Travel Channel.

Dan's entrepreneurial roots include Founder of AdTag Airport Media; Northwind Services; and Santiago Almada, an agri-business cooperative founded while serving in the Peace Corps.

Education, Personal, and Fellowship

Dan holds an MBA from Northwestern's Kellogg School of Management, with majors in finance (PE/VC), entrepreneurship, and media management. He earned his BA from Marquette University, in anthropology and economics.

Dan is an amateur sailor, holding BBC and Spinnaker skipper certifications, and the credentials for wanna-be race crew on the J/105 class. He also enjoys extended treks into the wilderness and off-the-beaten-path travel.

Dan is a member of Class 16. He served his fellowship at Samsung's Open Innovation Center and Media Solutions Center, under the mentorship of Brian Kang (Nautilus Venture Partners) and Seogju Lee (Samsung Corporate Development).