Matthew Le Merle

Matthew Le Merle (born January 18, 1962) is a superangel investor, board director, author, and advisor to leading companies including Alphabet, Google, PayPal, Shanshan and Talkweb. He is managing partner at Fifth Era and Keiretsu Capital based in the San Francisco Bay Area. The latter is the most active early stage venture investor in the US.

Le Merle was born in Surbiton before moving to Blackheath where he grew up. He attended Brooklands Primary School, Blackheath and Eltham College. His first job was as a paper delivery boy in South East London. Early summer jobs included soldering printed circuit boards, selling men's suits and mattresses at Harrods of London and working as a silver service waiter across the banqueting halls and five star hotels of London.

Le Merle was awarded an open scholarship to attend Christ Church, Oxford University where he took a double first in Geography. He also holds an MBA from Stanford University Graduate School of Business

In 1980 he was made a management trainee at National Westminster Bank. On graduation from Oxford, he was a consultant with McKinsey & Company, Inc. in New York and London. While with McKinsey, he was a member of the Firm's Consumer, Retail, Corporate Finance and Salesforce Effectiveness practices.

In 1986 McKinsey sponsored Le Merle to attend Stanford Graduate School of Business where he graduated with an MBA. While at Stanford, Le Merle acquired his pilot's license and worked with BT Capital (leveraged buyouts) in New York, and Bankers Trust Venture Capital in London.

From 1992 to 1999 Le Merle was a consultant at AT Kearney a global management consulting firm. Beginning as a founding member of the firm's Financial Institutions Group in New York, he joined the San Francisco office in 1994 where he served as Western U.S. Practice Leader until his departure from the firm in 1999. As consultant Le Merle advised several of the largest companies in the world on issues of strategy, operations, mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures, alliances and turnarounds.

Between 1999 and 2000 Le Merle was a senior executive at Gap, Inc. with responsibilities that included worldwide strategy, and corporate development for each of Gap, Old Navy and Banana Republic. He was also SVP Gap Global Marketing.

Between 2002 and 2006 Le Merle served as a general partner and Monitor venture partner of Monitor Group, a global consulting firm and merchant bank located in San Francisco. He was also a partner at Booz & Company between 2009 and 2012.

Le Merle is chairman of the US advisory boards of Shanshan Group and Talkweb, two of China's largest companies and is a board director or advisory board director at private companies, including 1World Online, ApplePie Capital, Concept Art House, Evertold, Holor Media, and Perkville. He was formerly Chairman of Telltale Games and a board director of Gap, Gap International and Old Navy internal boards, UK listed company Zattikka and LesConcierges, Mindfuse and Soundwave.

He is an active angel investor and a member of The Band of Angels and Keiretsu Forum.

During the 1990s Le Merle was a director of the San Francisco Partnership that successfully worked to have Mission Bay established as a leading Biotechnology center for San Francisco. In 1999 to 2001 he was an Advisor to the City of San Francisco including working on the formation of the MultiMedia Industry strategy for the City. Between 2002 and 2006 Le Merle was an advisor to the State of California on the future development of the Biotechnology Industry in the state and in each of the four biotechnology clusters in the State: San Diego, Southern California, Sacramento and the Bay Area and to Shanghai Municipality as the city developed its new Life Sciences Zhangjiang Hi-Tech Park.

Since 2006 Le Merle has also been a frequent publisher and speaker on the topic of how prospective Internet regulation may negatively impact innovation and growth in the Digital Economy. He has been invited by the governments of Korea, India, Indonesia, Israel, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, South Africa, Thailand, Turkey, UAE and USA among others to provide expert input and advice on how to stimulate clusters of innovation and digital economy growth.