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Big tennis: Serena Williams is coming to the OMR Festival 2023

Even those who have nothing to do with tennis should know Serena Williams. The American has been the big star of the sport since the early 2000s, has won more major titles than any other and has built up a personal brand known worldwide. She now also invests millions in young companies with Serena Ventures. We can’t wait to see what she has to say about her career and all her ventures on the OMR23 stage.

The OMR Festival 2023 is coming up again. We’ll see each other again on May 9th and 10th at the Hamburg Messe. We expect 70,000 visitors, over 800 speakers and more than 1,000 exhibitors and partners. As always, we will dance the night away together at the evening live concerts. But before that, the focus is on the program on our stages, in the master classes, in the guided tours and side events. One of the absolute highlights should certainly be the appearance of Serena Williams.

You want to be part of the OMR Festival 2023 and experience Serena Williams live? Then get a ticket right here.

Still celebrated at the US Open

Williams will be making one of her first European appearances after retiring in fall 2022 at the OMR Festival. She was last active at her farewell tournament, the US Open 2022, where she was once again celebrated by the home crowd as the GOAT (Greatest Of All Time). On the tennis court, Williams was known for her power and physical strength and feared by opponents. Her tennis outfits quickly become at least as striking as her playing style. Together with Nike, Serena Williams modernized the typical tennis look of white shirt and skirt early on, bringing color into play, asymmetrical cuts, references to black history. Appropriately, she did not announce the end of her career in a sports magazine, but in American Vogue.

Serena Williams showed how an athlete could become a world-renowned icon – for equality, for fashion, for mothers. That’s why over 16 million people follow her on Instagram. In the meantime she has founded the fashion brand “S by Serena” and the jewelery brand “Serena Williams Jewelery” out of her popularity. With her fashion, she once again visibly conveys her messages about body positivity and female empowerment to the outside world. And of course she is also an exciting face for other brands. In addition to partnering with Nike for decades, Serena Williams has also worked with Lincoln, Cash App, Just Egg, Gatorade, Michelob Ultra, Audemars Piguet and Gucci.

Also as an investor full risk

Currently, Williams is also increasingly working as an investor. Your VC Serena Ventures will start in March 2022 with a $111 million fund and already has 60 companies in its portfolio. The focus: companies with diverse founding teams. That’s why Serena Ventures doesn’t lock itself into one industry. The VC has invested in fintechs such as Propel and Cointracker, the billion-euro company Masterclass (here in the OMR portrait) and the smoothie delivery service Daily Harvest.

In the Vogue article on her tennis resignation, she explained why Serena Williams is now devoting herself to her career as an investor. “A few years ago I was at a JPMorgan Chase conference and saw a talk between Jamie Dimon and Caryn Seidman-Becker, CEO of security company Clear. Caryn has stated that less than two percent of all VC money goes to women,” Williams writes. “That’s when I understood that someone who looks like me has to start writing big checks.” The focus on diverse start-ups is paying off. Serena Ventures also has a stake in Esusu, one of the first Black Founder-led tech unicorns.

You want to be part of the OMR Festival 2023 and experience Serena Williams live? Then get a ticket right here.

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