Venture studio Cie, formerly Cie Digital Labs, has appointed Trent Johnson as Senior Vice President of Corporate Ventures.
Cie and Wavemaker previously announced a strategic partnership that introduced an innovative venture studio model to incubate new ideas and grow established startups. Johnson’s appointment deepens Cie and Wavemaker’s alliance—further empowering Cie to scale venture-building capabilities with an increased focus on private equity and corporate clients. At Cie, Johnson will leverage his prior corporate strategy, digital transformation, and venture creation expertise to help drive corporate innovation mandates.
“Trent’s contributions will bring Cie’s extensive entrepreneurial know-how to corporate leaders responsible for driving the innovation agenda,” said Anderee Berengian, CEO, Founder at Cie. “Cie will continue to build our track record of strong commercial outcomes for clients. We are confident that Trent’s combination of skills will further assist in growing our brand as the‘venture studio of choice’ for enterprise.”
As large companies “future-proof” their businesses, Cie’s start-up heritage leverages capabilities such as whitespace analysis, lean product (MVP) development, and signal detection to drive focus on the right opportunities. Once validated, new technology is quickly launched and brought to market for commercial success.
“Cie is a dominant force in serial entrepreneurial innovation,”said Trent Johnson, SVP at Cie. “Corporations are looking for new ways to reimagine their current business models which have been deployed for many years. Cie’s expertise and investment from our venture capital partners provide a new and efficient model of collaboration “for companies.”
Johnson will continue to advise Wavemaker Partners portfolio companies in the U.S. and Southeast Asia. Prior to joining Cie, Johnson drove key alliances with Wavemaker innovation partners like Cie to enable build, acquire, license, and fund strategies.
Johnson has also held several partner, senior director, and advisory roles at firms including Slalom, Avasant, ISG, and KPMG Consulting. At these firms, Johnson steered strategy and advisory assignments for global brands including Sony, Credit Suisse, and E*Trade, as well as private equity firms.
Johnson is currently a board member at Innovate@UCLA, a 40-year-old organization offering networking, professional education, and insights on disruptive technologies. There, Trent drives industry collaborations between world-renowned UCLA faculty, Silicon Beach entrepreneurs and leaders within the SoCal technology community
