Shaina Doar

Shaina Doar is Founder and Managing Director at Onward Ventures, an investment, incubation and advisory platform for innovation in the built environment. Onward works with founding teams, investors and corporate product teams to bring innovations to market and scale. Active portfolio investments include mass timber building manufacturing technology; an AI solution for preconstruction of affordable housing; a PE rollup of proptech solutions; and real estate innovation strategies for multiple new districts. Partners include Ford Motor Company, Google X, McKinsey, universities, PE funds, and several venture backed start-ups.

Doar’s career has spanned both the public and private sectors, constantly innovating and bringing new programs, technologies, financing mechanisms and companies to market. She was a founding member of Sidewalk Labs, Alphabet’s urban innovation fund where she was responsible for investing in and commercializing IP aligned with the forward-looking real estate development strategy of the firm, and she led economic development in the Emanuel administration in Chicago, coming out of the Great Recession, which she joined after starting the state and local economic development practice at McKinsey and Company.

Doar’s a serial entrepreneur having started, incubated or invested in dozens of companies, incubators, and non-profits aimed at driving innovation in cities, infrastructure and the built environment. She’s a frequent speaker at universities and conferences, and she has an MBA from Northwestern and a BBA from the University of Notre Dame.