As we celebrate the women of Corpus, Check fondly recalls the many great females she encountered at College, “I had a wonderful Director of Studies, Sarah Cain, and I studied English with four other women (and one man!) in my year so I spent a lot of my academic time at Corpus surrounded by impressive and thoughtful women. Outside of my course, I spent a lot of time at the Corpus Playroom, co-directing two plays with my talented friend Amrou Al-Kadhi, casting a number of female students in our plays. I had a great time as a student at Corpus and have incredibly happy memories from my time there.”

On leaving Corpus, Check initially undertook a graduate scheme at an advertising agency before joining the financial services industry at an asset management firm. Whilst there, she co-founded a non-profit called Diversity VC, focused on creating a more inclusive venture capital industry. Through the work of Diversity VC she saw there was an opportunity to create a venture capital firm which embedded inclusive investing into every aspect of its process – from how founders were selected and sourced, to how they were supported and what the underlying companies were working on. That firm is called Ada Ventures and was founded in 2018, named after the mathematician Ada Lovelace. It raised its first fund in 2018-19 and is now investing out of its second fund with $120million under management, and companies in the portfolio are tackling workers’ rights, mental health, obesity and enabling small business owners to thrive.

Check currently sits on a government-run taskforce focused on promoting and increasing the number of women-led high-growth businesses. The taskforce aims to influence high-growth investors and the wider business community and raise the aspirations of the next generation of female entrepreneurs.

In the 2023 New Year’s Honours, Check was awarded an MBE for services to Equality and Diversity in the Venture Capital Sector.

In appreciation of her Corpus experience and in recognition of the support she received whilst she was a student, Check recently established a bursary for an Arts and Humanities student in need of financial support.

“I am focused on removing barriers for people who are unable to access opportunities. One of those barriers is financial and I want to contribute in a small way to students being able to experience Corpus, whatever their financial circumstances.”