A Day In The Life

Venture capitalist Eileen Burbidge on sexism, motherhood and women in tech.

- Emma Broomfield

Born in Chicago, Eileen Burbidge, 48, studied computer science at the University of Illinois before working at Apple and Yahoo in Silicon Valley. In 2004, she moved to London to work for Skype. She became the Treasury’s special envoy for fintech in 2015 and was also awarded an MBE. A founding partner at Passion Capital, she lives in North London where she and her partner Tom co-parent five children under 13.

I’m not a morning person, but my kids are very good at waking up at exactly seven o’clock. They’re with us half the time – the older four are from my former marriage, and the youngest is Tom’s, from a previous relationship. Naturally, they all want different things for breakfast, so there’ll be all combinations of cereals and things-on-toast being made. I usually skip breakfast. I’m a cold-caffeine person: it used to be eight Coca-Colas a day, but I cut down to two when I was first pregnant. We’d like to have more children and I’ve had two rounds of IVF.