Walne is the newest partner at Manhattan Venture Partners, coming from a background as a founder and operator in the startup world. She has a soft spot for supply chain, and doesn’t mind when her friends laugh at that nerdy tidbit.

For this Proust Goes Tech, we catch up with Walne and learn about why she doesn’t mind ignoring Slack sometimes, how slow walkers make her miserable, and which book is in her top three favorite business books of all time.

The interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.

What would you otherwise be doing right now?

If I had the guarantee of financial freedom I’d be in the winemaking and distribution business. While there’s implied romanticism of working in the wine industry, at its core it’s cultivation and farming and operates on slim margins. Beyond growing a vineyard, I’d love to manage a tasting room and build out the distribution and marketing channels for the various wine labels. I’m the type of person who embraces meeting new people constantly, so the revolving door of foot traffic in a tasting room is the type of environment I think I’d thrive in.

Your main fault?

My team would tell you that it’s my tendency to skip meals during the work week. Aside from that, I struggle to “turn off” in periods of perceived downtime. I’m working through ways to mitigate this. I’ve started leaving my phone behind when spending time out with my family in order to focus on being in the moment. Our time is fleeting and I know that as I get older the memories I build now won’t be built around my Slack message response time.

Your idea of misery?

A narrow sidewalk in which I’m stuck behind a pack of slow walkers. I walk like a New Yorker – with a purpose. I don’t understand how people operate otherwise.

What do you appreciate the most in your friends?

Trust, honesty, and an ability to give me a painful amount of constructive criticism, whether it’s solicited or not. Throughout all walks of life I’m grateful to say I’ve built varying types of friendships that I cherish immensely. My friends and network span across diverse backgrounds, and I’m humbled by those that lead a life that is polar opposite to mine.

Your chief characteristic?

Fierce loyalty to both people and a mission. I don’t do anything in life unless I would stand behind it and be accountable. I put an emphasis on this as I evaluate and build teams both from an investing and recruiting perspective. I also consider myself to be incredibly pragmatic and don’t take things personally, which I’ve found is off-putting to those who lack confidence in themselves.

What skill do you wish you possessed?

I really wish I could consider myself fearless when it came to physical activities. I have a low risk tolerance when it comes to anything I think can land me in the hospital.

Your most impactful book?

Never Split the Difference by Chris Voss. This is hands down one of the top three most important business books someone in a business/startup role should read.

What defines success?

The ability to deliver and have personal accountability for goals you set for yourself and others. I evaluate success similar to how I think about freedom, which is having the ability to choose how you want to spend your time.

When is confidence lost?

When there’s been rapport established and the counter party still can’t (or won’t) tell you what they really want or need.

Which buzzword is exhausted?

Pre-seed. I believe that the concept of pre-seed is too loosely defined and carries a connotation that a fundraising event doesn’t merit the label of a round because it was likely relatively small.

What virtues do others have that you don’t?

Compassion to the extent of giving everyone the benefit of the doubt. I tend to take a conservative approach to trust.

What impact do you want to leave behind?

I want others to remember me as someone who made them feel incredibly comfortable showing their own strength and doing it with conviction. I think everyone has a story to tell and a lesson to share, and many aren’t given an outlet to do so. I also want to continue empowering people to feel as though they can take an untraditional path to success. The stigma of going to the best schools and landing a top tier job right away is slowly fading, and it can’t happen fast enough.

What’s the biggest problem tech is failing to solve?

It’s disheartening to see how antiquated the intake and patient care systems within the medical field still are. There is so much left to build to enable healthcare technicians to do their jobs effectively and swiftly, especially in emergency environments.

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Her firm will invest in female scouts, who will independently seek deal flow. For those who don’t know, scouts help large venture capital firms find the next dorm-room-dreamt startup. Sequoia Capital, for example, sources scout to help its firm find undercover deals – and has been doing so for over a decade.

Investors in the fund include Away founder , , and of .

Kunst is specifically targeting female scouts because of their lack of representation in the venture capital room. , 91 percent of decision-makers in the industry are male.

Beyond investing in scouts, Kunst said the fund will be used to invest in follow-on rounds that flow from scout investments and her own personal choice to invest in certain companies.

That said, Cleo Capital is not specifying any target verticals or requiring the new women scouts to only invest in female-founded companies. Kunst said this frees up the scouts to focus on finding the best deals.

“I’m not going to put a bunch of random restrictions on you, you’re brilliant, you’re smart and I’m going to trust you with that,” Kunst told Crunchbase News, of her scouts. “They can invest in whoever they want.”

With her fund, she expects each scout to make around five investments each. That number may change as some industries are more capital intensive than others, Kunst noted.

Kunst declined to explain how much money each scout will have to invest with, or how many scouts she has already locked down. That said, she has secured a “literal rocket scientist” and the co-founder of , . She is also recruiting scouts in Denver, Detroit, and other locations going forward.

, a partner at , told me last month about how she’s noticing a growing class of female venture capitalists. No longer are we in a world where venture capitalists have to come from a male-dominated semiconductor and computer chip industry, she said. Walne herself came into venture capital from an “untraditional” path, coming from a job as a director at , which helps startups manage equity for employees.

“There’s a new subset of venture capitalists,” she said, referring to a rising class of female venture capitalists.

That said, Walne said  “there’s no one better suited than Sarah to utilize the network effects of the strongest females in the Valley to identify untapped, female-led opportunities.”

“She understands that there are so few women who have built recognizable startups that when they spot a good opportunity they know exactly which characteristics make them attractive investment opportunities,” she added.

Kunst noted that companies she’s looked at have raised more than her entire fund in a single round. , Cleo Capital was aiming toward $10 million – but ended up raising $3.5 million.

This is the second largest fund closed by a black, female venture capitalist in America, Kunst added.

“Super happy to be that number two,” Kunst said. “And I hope I get replaced soon with someone who has raised a much bigger one.

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