John Banta serves as the President and Managing Director of the Blue Venture Fund, an $+1B corporate venture fund sponsored by the BlueCross BlueShield Association. He is responsible for maintaining relationships with all relevant stakeholders to ensure the operational success of the Fund, and for the generation of an appropriate rate of strategic and financial return for participating Blue Plans. John was included in the Global Corporate Venturing Power List of top international corporate venture capital leaders since 2017. He also acts as a Vice President of the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association, where he is responsible for the National Employee Benefits Administration, a $15B employer benefits program serving over 96,000 members. In addition to leading the Blue Venture Fund and NEBA teams and strategies, Banta is also responsible for overseeing the National Retirement Trust and National 401(k) programs, as well as the ongoing development and implementation of leading-edge investment activity on behalf of the National Employee Benefits Committee (NEBC), Blue Venture Fund’s Boards of Managers and BCBSA senior management. John has worked with a variety of portfolio companies across IT, healthcare and physical sciences, including internet services, SaaS, instrumentation, renewable fuels and chemicals, water, and agriculture. He currently serves as the Executive Chairman of both Positive Development, Inc. and Carallel, LLC, which he co-founded, and as a Director of Intrinsic Imaging, Inc. John serves or has served as a Director of numerous additional early and growth stage businesses, and on the Advisory Boards of Global Corporate Venture, the Board of Visitors of the University of Maryland School of Pharmacy, The National Alliance to Impact the Social Determinants of Health, the Innovation and Value Initiative, and on the Boards of the Illinois Venture Capital Association, the iBio Institute the Investment Management Consultant's Association, the Argonne Venture Accelerator Consortium, the Clean Energy Trust and the Midwest Governors Association. John earned an MBA in finance and statistics with high honors from the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business where he has guest lectured, and a bachelor's degree in finance from the University of Illinois.