Gelila Zenebe Bekele

Gelila is the founder of Aone Partners, a search fund partnership backed by Trilogy and 14 software CEOs and technology investors, focused on acquiring and growing enterprise software businesses. Previously, she served as Director at a software holdco and worked at BlackRock within the Multi-Asset Strategies and Solutions Group, developing investment frameworks for the world’s largest sovereign wealth funds, endowments, and foundations.

She has published studies on technology businesses with Stanford Publishing and Harvard Business Review, covering IPO strategy, venture capital, and M&A. These are taught in Stanford's flagship entrepreneurship courses.

Gelila serves on the Boards of mission-driven organizations, including GGRF, a foundation that has awarded merit scholarships to over 600 student athletes. She is a sponsor in Project Redwood, an organization that has funded 80+ nonprofits in 33 countries and impacted over 1 million lives. She also serves on the Executive Committee and the Regional Leadership Board in Stanford Women’s Circles, one of Stanford's fastest growing alumni programs with 1400+ members worldwide and 170 members in New York.

Gelila earned an MBA from Stanford’s Graduate School of Business and a BA in Economics and Computer Science from Columbia University, where she was a Kluge Scholar.

In her spare time, Gelila writes a weekly column with Forbes on AI in private investing. She grew up in Addis Ababa and lives in New York.

Forbes article on Aone Partners and private investment firms using AI in due diligence.

Conferences and Forums

AltsTech Interview on Aone Partners

Awards & Honors

This distinction was conferred on behalf of President Barack Obama’s administration.
In 2012, Gelila was awarded the Kluge Scholars Award, a leadership and academic distinction granted to 7% of admitted students at Columbia University.
In 2020, Gelila was awarded the Stanford Leadership Award for Extraordinary Service.
Gelila was awarded the 2015 Columbia Spring Leadership Award for founding and leading CTP, an edtech platform that has worked with thousands of exceptional high school students in Ethiopia since 2014.
In 2022, Gelila joined Pacific Lake Partners’ Executive Leadership Program (ELP) as one of ten executives for the year.
In 2019, Gelila received the Toigo Fellowship, selected following a selection process to recognize upcoming leaders in the financial capital markets and investments industry (Top 15%).
In 2008, Gelila was awarded the ICS Scholar Award.