How Candice Morgan Puts Equity to Work

We sat down with Candice Morgan, a tech and VC operator, investor, and cross-sector leader, to talk about what it really takes to build systems that endure. From early career lessons in corporate consulting to shaping culture and product at Pinterest and Google Ventures, one theme has always been consistent: she leads with community in mind and works toward equity by design. Now, as a new member of BLCK VC’s board, Candice is bringing the same thoughtfulness and precision to the future of venture.

Her career has been defined by a refusal to accept complacency — always pushing toward what’s possible rather than settling for what is. That drive has shaped how she operates, how she invests, and how she shows up across ecosystems. At this moment in BLCK VC’s evolution, that commitment to intentionality and impact could not be more aligned.

From Strategy to Systems: A Career Built on Pattern Recognition

Across every chapter of her career, Candice has positively influenced how organizations function and who they serve. Her work spans sectors, but the foundation remains the same: she creates structures that expand access and make outcomes sustainable. Whether advising global companies, co-founding an investment collective, or supporting emerging fund managers, she focuses on long-term design rooted in trust, consistency, and community impact.

Her early years in corporate consulting set the tone. Walking into boardrooms with her suit and sharp questions, she combed through workforce data and uncovered what the spreadsheets didn’t say out loud. “Who advanced. Who plateaued. Who left. The gaps weren’t new, just unspoken.”

After nearly a decade partnering with some of the top global public companies, Candice got a call from Pinterest that sealed her transition into tech — a sector in which she has built her career since. The fast pace, she says, created room for reinvention. In spaces where companies were still writing their operating playbooks, there was more permission to experiment, to restructure, to lead differently. That window gave her the chance to challenge teams not only to innovate externally, but to reflect that same ambition internally.

“Equity work isn’t something you do off to the side,” she says. “It has to be embedded in how a company operates, from product to people to process.”

At Pinterest, she worked closely with product teams to address a key user experience issue: searches weren’t returning results reflective of all identities. This wasn’t a matter of optics. It meant going deep into design and engineering systems to drive real change. By helping the team prototype a solution that eventually landed on the roadmap, she demonstrated how equity can be wired directly into product thinking.

Through this work, she began shaping a broader vision of innovation; one that starts with inclusion at the core and scales through systems built to last.

Reframing Innovation Through Inclusion

Candice has consistently challenged the idea that new ideas can come from the same conditions that excluded them. In venture, where conversations often revolve around “differentiated deal flow,” she highlights a core flaw: if the team sourcing deals lacks diversity, the flow simply replicates what’s already been seen.

To her, innovation is about perspective. It comes from questioning what’s been normalized and surfacing what’s been overlooked. She brings this clarity to venture capital as a prompt to rethink how value is defined and discovered.

This philosophy aligns with BLCK VC’s own priorities. It expands access to capital and shifts perceptions of who qualifies as a credible builder, funder, and contributor.

Candice’s focus on innovation and inclusion extends beyond products to the broader landscape of capital, where similar patterns of exclusion persist, including who gets the opportunity to invest.

Building Collective Power Through Capital

In 2021, Candice co-founded Black Angel Group to expand participation in angel investing among Black professionals. What started as a workshop with Googlers quickly grew into a network with strategy, structure, and staying power.

The group now counts more than 300 members, with 45% identifying as women, and has invested close to $8 million in early-stage startups. The vast majority of participants are first-time investors.

To Candice, this signals that barriers are structural, not individual.

“The interest is there. The ideas are there. The capital isn’t always within reach,” she explains. “We wanted to close that gap with tools, community, and repetition, things that make investing feel like a real option.”

With the right tools, frameworks, and support systems, investing becomes not only accessible but sustainable.

This work is about more than capital deployment. It includes knowledge-sharing, cultural context, and broadening who gets to participate in wealth-building from the start.

Black Angel Group became proof of what’s possible when access is supported by structure, a perspective she now brings to BLCK VC’s next phase. Her role, as she sees it, is both strategic and connective. “I’m a builder,” she says. “I like to bring people together across silos. Whether it’s through capital, community, or knowledge, we have to create new entry points — and hold the door open once people are inside.”

This perspective is core to the way she approaches venture: not just as a funder or operator, but as a facilitator of movement-wide momentum.

Supporting BLCK VC’s Next Chapter of Growth

Candice’s relationship with BLCK VC has always been grounded in alignment — through shared values, lived experience, and sustained engagement. Long before joining the board, she was already shaping community conversations and forging deep connections within the network.

As an alum of Black Venture Institute Cohort 3, she experienced firsthand the power of BVI’s curriculum and community. She then helped introduce it to angels within her own network and viewed it as a critical piece of a broader ecosystem play.

“BVI was the only program I’d ever been through that gave the perspective of, ‘What is venture missing when it’s so insular?’” she reflected. “It offered technical depth, but it also centered the experience of investors from underrepresented backgrounds. That combination really stuck with me.”

Her impact on the community extended far beyond programming. She hosted one of BLCK VC’s most memorable LA Tech Week dinners, bringing together LPs, fund managers, and organizational leaders in a space defined by intentionality and access. Before that, she helped facilitate both live and virtual convenings between institutional investors and emerging fund managers — planting seeds for long-term ecosystem growth.

Candice has also played a quiet but critical role in connecting BLCK VC to powerful allies, from fund leaders to philanthropic institutions, who share a commitment to racial and economic equity. “A core part of my work is connecting talented people,” she says. “This industry doesn’t always know what it’s missing. But when we open the aperture, we unlock entirely new markets, founders, and possibilities.”

Her decision to join the board reflects both history and momentum. It’s a continuation of years of relationship-building, coalition-shaping, and values-driven leadership. Now, she brings operator perspective, strategic clarity, and a long-term lens on sustainability to BLCK VC’s next chapter.

“It’s not just about bringing new people into venture — it’s about making sure those already here are supported, especially in a climate where nothing is guaranteed, not even on Fund III or Fund V.”

Leading with Clarity, Centering Sustainability

Candice is open about the emotional labor this work can carry, especially for those who’ve spent their careers as the only or one of few in the room. She speaks candidly about the need to protect your energy, to know what recharges you, and to be honest about what drains you.

She reflects on a recent moment of clarity: meeting two Black women founders building a maternal health platform, Aster, that provides personalized care across underserved communities. That conversation, she says, reminded her why she continues to show up.

“If the work doesn’t inspire you and you feel like you’re shrinking just to stay there, that’s a sign. You don’t have to suffer to be in this industry. There are choices. And we deserve joy too.”

Candice’s perspective couldn’t be more clear: our intersectional identities shape the world around us. They shape how we’re seen, how we’re treated, and how we show up in this industry. Showing up as our whole selves is part of our superpower, but navigating spaces that weren’t designed with us in mind can take its toll.

Her clarity is a reminder that resilience doesn’t have to come at the cost of well-being. It can be rooted in purpose, aligned with joy, and sustained through community. For those of us doing the work of building and shifting this industry, her words serve as both a compass and a call.

Because rest is resistance. Joy is strategy. And when we honor ourselves fully, we make space to lead from a place of wholeness — and possibility.

Carrying the Work Forward

Candice’s approach to innovation reflects a deep sense of intentionality. She sees diversity as a necessary perspective for building systems that last, one that must be integrated into every layer of decision-making and design. Her work is shaped by proximity, perspective, and deep collaboration.

Candice’s core principles have always been central to her work: inclusion is a catalyst. Innovation requires intention, collaboration, and a willingness to build beyond the expected. “Over 80% of economic growth is tied to innovation,” she notes. “And innovation doesn’t happen in echo chambers. It happens when diverse voices build solutions that work for everyone.”

Now on our board, Candice is focused on supporting long-term sustainability and helping BLCK VC reach deeper into the venture ecosystem. Her track record in the field speaks for itself, built through years of connecting strategy to structure and purpose to practice, always guided by a people-first approach. She’s a partner in scaling what’s already working, challenging what needs to evolve, and reinforcing the systems that allow our community to thrive.

Candice’s presence on the board underscores BLCK VC’s ongoing commitment to growth and long-term impact, driven by intentional leadership and a shared vision of equity by design.