Photo by Hector Fallas
Maggie Vo was on a plane in 2009 when she befriended the gentleman sitting beside her.
She had recently graduated from Centre College in Kentucky with a degree in finance, and, as luck would have it, he worked for an investment firm. “You should hire me,” she said, to which her fellow traveler replied that she should maybe call him someday.
“I called him every week after that,” Vo says.
Her persistence paid off. After breezing through the arduous Chartered Financial Analyst, (CFA) exam, she was hired at Boca Raton’s Blue Shores Capital.
Now, Vo, 34, is general partner and chief investment officer of Miami-based tech hedge fund, Fuel Venture Capital. Her story of getting there is capped by bold moves like those phone calls she made early on — actions steeped in confidence from her upbringing in Vietnam.
Vo’s parents owned a music company in Ho Chi Minh City that trained young artists to break into the industry, and Vo spent three years singing in a Vietnamese pop band. She says she enjoyed the challenge of being in front of audiences, and that it gave her the courage to move to the United States at 17. An exchange program set her up with a host family in upstate New York — but they spoke no Vietnamese, and Vo knew little English. “It was a crazy year, to be honest with you,” she recalls.
After college and that chance encounter on the plane, Vo started working as an investment associate at Boca Raton’s Blue Shores Capital in 2011.
In 2018, she became managing general partner and chief investment officer at Fuel Venture Capital. She invests primarily in new technology like robotics and augmented reality.
“I always find myself being the only female in the room. Not only a female but I’m a minority female,” says the Boca Raton resident. “If you think that’s a weakness or disadvantage, it will become one. But if you think it’s an advantage, you can leverage it.”