Wisteria Strategies provides the strategic clarity to maximize impact amidst rapid changes in technology, the geopolitical environment, and the funding landscape.
We empower foundations, family offices, impact investors, and non-profit leaders with insights gleaned from a career spent at the nexus of tech, policy, strategy, grantmaking, and impact investing.
Services
Strategy, fund, & portfolio design
Leverage our experience building some of the most high-impact, tech-focused funds and organizations to identify opportunities, craft effective strategies, and build innovative investment vehicles to solve real problems.
Portfolio risk assessment & mitigation
We analyze the potentials risks in your portfolio and provide tailored recommendations that will give you greater confidence in making difficult decisions about which organizations to support and how to build resilience in this dynamic environment.
Strategic support for grantees & investees
Uplevel the skills of your portfolio organizations and help them unlock the resources they need to fuel their impact with the expert guidance of a former CEO, long-time grantmaker, and award-winning investor who has supported more than 300 organizations to develop winning fundraising, business, and revenue diversification strategies.
AI trainings & guidance
Transform how your organization and/or your grantees leverage AI with expert-led training and strategic guidance. From demystifying AI for skeptical audiences to implementing practical use cases, we help clients use AI tools confidently and effectively so you can spend more time on what matters most. Our services include customized workshops, tool selection guidance, basic to advanced prompt engineering techniques, and support to navigate AI tool privacy policies – all designed to enhance your impact while addressing privacy and practical adoption concerns.
Tech impact intelligence
With our deep technical expertise, we can help you navigate the changing technology landscape confidently, as well as source and vet high-potential investment/grant opportunities that align with your values and deliver target returns.
Strategist | Wonk | Grantmaker | Investor
About Jochai,
Founder & CEO of Wisteria Strategies
Jochai Ben-Avie has 15 years of experience as an international leader in tech policy, grantmaking, impact investing, and has built some of the most impactful organizations in the tech, telecom, and digital rights ecosystem.
Investor: Jochai is the Co-Founder and former CEO of Connect Humanity, an impact investment fund focused on expanding internet access which he scaled from a concept to one of the ImpactAssets top 50 Emerging Impact Managers in the world. As the Finance Chair of Code for Science & Society, he spearheaded the creation of the organization’s investment policies and steered the organization to a 52X growth in annual revenue.
Grantmaker: Jochai is a longtime grantmaker in the tech and digital rights space, having built grantmaking teams at Connect Humanity, Mozilla, and Access Now, and has served as a consultant to the Ford Foundation, the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the Open Society Foundations, and the Omidyar Network. At Mozilla, Jochai built both the Policy Team’s grantmaking program as well as Mozilla’s open source technology funding arm, deploying millions to broaden access, improve security, empower users, and advance the company’s interests worldwide. At AccessNow, he designed the strategy and secured the funding for the organization’s $1M+ per year rapid response grants program.
Policy leader: Throughout his career, Jochai has worked on more than 100 pieces of legislation and regulation on issues as diverse as AI, cybersecurity, data protection, platform regulation, net neutrality, connectivity, competition, copyright, digital identity, business and human rights, and sanctions and export controls. As the Head of International Public Policy at Mozilla, Jochai scaled the Firefox-maker’s public policy team from one person focused solely on the US to a global team delivering legislative wins on six continents. Prior to Mozilla, Jochai was the first Policy Director of Access Now, which under his leadership grew 10X in revenue, becoming one of the largest and most impactful digital rights organizations in the world. While at Access Now, he co-founded RightsCon, the premier global conference on tech and human rights, attended annually by thousands of industry leaders, policymakers, grantmakers, investors, leading civil society organizations, and academics.
Recognitions and affiliations: Jochai has been recognized as a World Economic Forum Global Shaper, a Truman National Security Fellow, an Atlantic Council Non-Resident Fellow, is a Board Member and the Finance Committee Chair of Code for Science & Society, and a Consulting Member of The Upside network of top independent consultants.
Jochai was privileged to receive his education at Bard College at Simon’s Rock where he graduated summa cum laude with a BA in Social Psychology and Political Studies and the University of Oxford’s Lincoln College where he studied Philosophy, Politics, and Economics.
Wisteria Strategies works with a deep bench of vetted expert consultants and can quickly mobilize additional resources with diverse areas of expertise to meet your needs.
Why Wisteria?
Wisteria is a beautiful climbing flower that is the distinguishing feature of the facade of our Palo Alto headquarters. Just as we work globally, wisteria is native to many different parts of the world. Wisteria is very hardy and grows rapidly symbolizing how we work to quickly grow our clients’ resilience and impact.