Jeff Kearl is a venture capitalist at Pelion Venture Partners who built iconic consumer brands like Skullcandy and Stance before moving into investing, giving him an operator's perspective on product development and brand building. He takes a highly thesis-driven approach to consumer categories based on structured research he conducted across 300+ product categories, and he's known for investing in some deals partly to create business role models for his five daughters, even bringing them to board meetings.