Written by Sonia Parikh

Murphy Raine is an influential marketing strategist and consultant in the biomedical field and a dedicated professor at Grand Canyon University. She is one of the early and most active members of Venture Café Phoenix. If you get the opportunity to meet Murphy at Venture Café Phoenix, make sure to ask her about her current projects. One thing about Murphy is that she is a connector, not just a networker. If she can’t help you, she will introduce you to someone who can. Venture Café Phoenix is beyond lucky to have Murphy as one of its founding members. 

How did you hear about Venture Café Phoenix?  

Murphy: 

Well, I work/worked at TGen and they were putting together a group of people on the Phoenix Bioscience Corps, and I was the director of Marketing there. So in order to help get the word out, I was brought in for their soft opening and then I just kept coming back.

So I’ve been told you have the most Venture Cafe visits, how many do you have?

Murphy:

I do. I have 41 right now.

How does it feel being the most notorious Venture Cafe person?

Murphy:

I’m glad Forbes has stopped calling it out on stage.

What does Venture Café Phoenix mean to you? Why do you keep coming back all of these times, what makes it so special, and what do you think you’re getting out of Venture Cafe?

Murphy:

Absolutely. I think, well, why I keep coming back is because of the opportunities and the community. Each individual that I meet, even if I can’t necessarily work directly with them or we’re not in the same field or the same space, either become somebody I can help connect to others as I go around, making me feel like I am even more integrated and can be more helpful to my community of being a connector, not just a networker.

It’s an opportunity to grow my network, and grow my capacity for learning because it’s every week, and it makes it easy to put into my routine. Now it really is just routine at this point, but I love that I don’t know what I don’t know. So even though I am full-fledged, bioscience and biotech that’s my passion, I learned more things about sustainability and EVs and things I didn’t know that I would want to know more about. It also takes me oftentimes back to the roots in public health that, you know, like some of the water things that we have done and the UN 17 goals and those types of things, that’s nice, but just being surrounded by people who want to be here, want to learn, want to connect, the rule of no hard selling is phenomenal. I love that I can meet people of all ages. I feel like a lot of other networking events, you’re kind of either all the same age or you all do the same thing,…. Like, I’m here and I’m talking to people who are all over the spectrum, whether it’s net worth or age or amount of school or I mean, it’s just it’s nice to be in the mix and feeling like you belong in the room.

Tell us a little more about your current position and the projects/companies you are working with.

Murphy:

The easiest way to put it, I guess, is just I’m a marketing consultant. I currently hold titles as the Chief Marketing Officer at X3 Capital, which is a web AI decentralized technologies venture group with Forbes, and Director of Marketing at TGen. Additionally, I do consulting for the Maricopa County Department of Public Health. Im also an adjunct faculty at Grand Canyon University, 

Can you discuss your experience at Venture Café Phoenix and the event’s impact on your organization?/Any memorable moments?

Murphy:

So when I started, I was working at TGen, and about six months in I attempted to quit TGen, because my freelance was coming up so much. I still work there 10 hours a week because they struck a deal with me. But nonetheless, I mean, I have received far beyond my capacity for consulting just by coming here [Venture Cafe] every week.  I’m having to hire people; I’m now part of bigger deals than I ever thought possible. I oftentimes feel like I have imposter syndrome when I’m in certain rooms because of the people I’ve met here.

I think the experiences I’ve gotten out of venture cafe are because of those I’ve connected with and had deep conversations with. I’ve learned more about myself and learned more about things deeply. Like the superficial conversations just aren’t there as often because, again, I keep showing up. So it’s nice that you know you have one conversation with somebody, it’s superficial. The second time around, it’s a little bit deeper. The third time around I can connect them to somebody else. 

Any final thoughts on Venture Café Phoenix?

Murphy: Everyone should try it out at least once and the more you show up, the more you’re going to get out of it.

To connect with Murphy Raine on LinkedIn click here.

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