Meet The LOVB Investor Hoping to “Change The Narrative” Around Women’s Wealth

For over two decades Chantell Preston has transformed healthcare by founding and leading companies through regulatory challenges and strategic shifts. Now, the recent League One Volleyball (“LOVB”) investor is hoping to “change the narrative” around women’s wealth.

Before co-founding Atlantic Health Group, a developer and manager of healthcare facilities; Mentis Neuro Rehabilitation, a cognitive and physical rehabilitation provider for traumatic brain injury patients; and Facilities Management Group, a healthcare management and consulting company, Preston was a girl who loved playing sports. She dabbled in softball, basketball and tennis. As a mother to three girls–Adyson and twins, Ellie and Grace–each of whom she requires to compete in at least one team sport–she’s coached youth sports teams. Through these experiences, she’s recognized the power of sports to develop women’s leadership skills.

“Sports provides a great opportunity to learn confidence and collaboration,” Preston said. “How do we compete against each other as women, yet still support each other? In my generation some of that didn’t exist, because at the time there were so few opportunities at the top for women who weren’t too busy cutting each other’s legs out from under one another.”

Recognizing this, Preston is now leveraging her investment power to create opportunities for women. Recently, she became a co-founder and co-owner of LOVB San Francisco Volleyball. Set to debut in 2027, the team’s cap table features a women-led ownership group. Preston came to the LOVB investment opportunity through her connection with Rebel Girls’ CEO, Jes Wolfe, who is also a co-founder and co-owner of LOVB San Francisco Volleyball. For Preston, this investment pathway illuminates the changes needed to drive greater sports team investment access for women.

“Unless you know somebody, you don’t get access,” Preston said. “Women lack access to investing opportunities. Women don’t have the same networking opportunities as men. When we get together, we talk about our kids, our spouses and everything other than what asset classes we want to invest in. I’m not going to blame it on everybody else. I’m going to say to women, ‘you need to step up and say you want to invest.'”

Preston and Wolfe did just that.

“We went to LOVB and said, ‘we want to do something a little bit different–we want to show that women are going to support and own women’s sports teams,'” Preston said.

LOVB agreed and the two investors began building a cap table unusual in women’s sports–one led by women.

“Our cap table is not typical,” Preston said. “Our cap table is around 80 percent female. We knew that if we didn’t open it up, a lot of these individuals would never have access to invest. We wanted to bring in high-level executive women from the Bay Area, Olympians and athletes. It would’ve been easier to get five or six institutional investors to write checks and move on down the way. But we aren’t going to change the narrative around women’s sports if we don’t do it differently. Who’s benefiting from women’s sports right now? All of the legacy ownership groups and media companies. And they’re primarily led by men.”

For Preston, building the cap table wasn’t just about getting women involved. It was also about finding the right leaders to scale the organization.

“We had lots of people who wanted to write checks, but we had to consider if they were the right partners,” she said. “We needed investors who were able to help us accelerate the business.”

Today, LOVB San Francisco Volleyball’s cap table features the likes of Abby Wambach, Glennon Doyle, Natalie Coughlin, Alix Klineman, Brandi Chastain and other leading women in sports, media and business. Together, they are collaborating to drive the team’s success ahead of its inaugural season.

“We had an ownership summit where we brought in all of our investors and said, ‘this is what we need from you. If we are going to change the narrative, we need to do it together,'” Preston said. “We had thirty individuals–mainly women–around the table. You look around and think, ‘wow, this is a powerful group.’ I got choked up realizing the magnitude of what we’re doing.”

Despite the opportunity to elevate women, for Preston–who is also a venture advisor to the Texas-based early stage venture capital firm, Mercury Fund and lead partner of the Portfolia Active Aging & Longevity Fund–investing in LOVB San Francisco Volleyball is about generating a positive return.

“I invest in a lot of women-owned businesses, but it’s not because of women,” Preston said. “It’s because they have great, executable plans. So many people say to me, ‘you just invest in women.’ No, I invest in the best companies with the best teams. I come from the adage that investing in women is not a charity, it’s a good business decision based off of economics. A lot of women say, ‘I feel guilty for making money.’ I don’t. I’m putting my money at risk; I want a great return on my investment.”

Through LOVB San Francisco Volleyball and her forthcoming book, “The Success Lie: Reframing Your Reality to Thrive Personally and Professionally,” which is set to release in July 2026, Preston hopes to change the narrative around women’s wealth.

“What I’ve seen in my venture capital and other sides of life, is that women are very risk averse to investing,” Preston said. “They feel guilty. Now, they’ll write a philanthropy check because they feel like they’re making an impact. But they feel guilty for investing in companies and wanting a return on their investment. I think that comes from the old adage to kids of, ‘hey, somebody will take care of you. You don’t have to worry about it.’ So, we were never taught how to build or own wealth or about different asset classes. How do we change the narrative to show that it’s important to us to look at women’s sports not as a charity, but an investment?”