How Women Become Angel Investors & Board Members | Breen Sullivan (The Fourth Effect)

98 percent of investment dollars in this country flow to 14 percent of the population. Breen Sullivan (Featured in Forbes & Harvard Business School Speaker) decided to take a hammer to that ceiling. In Episode 53, host Brandi Kolosky (Founder & GP of Sacral Capital, Sacral Fund I, & Sacral Sisters) sits down with Breen Sullivan — Founder & CEO of The Fourth Effect, the fastest-growing board marketplace where women make the first move. Breen is a Yale, Berkeley, and Tulane Law alum who spent a decade as General Counsel to three high-growth tech startups. She watched her male peers angel invest, join advisory boards, & build for-profit board careers while her female peers were locked out — not for lack of qualification, but because no system existed. So she built one. Today, The Fourth Effect connects a community of more than 20,000 members, 3,500 board-ready startups and experts, & a private investment club of angels, LPs, & GPs — with a brand-new AI-native platform & a proprietary relationship contract management system that finally makes advisory equity, board equity, angel checks, & LP commitments visible in one place. In this conversation, Breen & Brandi go deep on: ▸ Why 98 percent of investment dollars still flow to 14 percent of the population ▸ The "invisible middle" of the economy where money & power actually concentrate ▸ The two origin moments that became The Fourth Effect ▸ "A business problem masquerading as a legal problem" — & what it cost one founder ▸ How board service & check-writing reinforce each other on a single flywheel ▸ Why qualified, capitalized, interested women still don't write their first check ▸ The Sacral Sisters education-first model for women LPs ▸ The new AI-native Fourth Effect platform and its relationship contract system ▸ How to move from operator → advisor → angel → LP → fund manager ▸ Take the Capital Readiness Scorecard: https://plungeintoprosperity.com ▸ The Fourth Effect (free community): https://www.thefourtheffect.com Subscribe to Sacral Capital & Plunge Into Prosperity Substack