startup-operations
(13)
Bloom Talent
Bloom Talent is a woman-owned boutique recruiting agency in San Francisco that places Chief of Staff, Executive Assistant, and operations talent for tech startups, venture firms, and executives. Founded in 2015 by Amanda Christoff, the firm is known for a relationship-driven, white-glove approach that weighs personality fit alongside skills, and has placed candidates at companies including Y Combinator, Stripe, Airbnb, and Pinterest.
Samantha Andonian
Samantha Andonian is a San Francisco-based executive business partner who has spent more than a decade as the operational right hand to founders and C-suite leaders. She started as a stage manager and theater producer before turning that backstage discipline into a career supporting CEOs and chief product officers at Google, Slack, Bumble, Render and Splice. Beyond her own desk, she is an active voice in the executive-assistant community through eaMAFIA/eaRISE, mentoring EAs and pushing the field to be treated as a strategic profession rather than clerical support.
Stable
Stable is an AI-powered virtual mailbox and business address service that turns the office mailroom into software. Founded in 2019 and part of Y Combinator's Winter 2020 batch, the company gives distributed and remote-first businesses a permanent U.S. address, scans and digitizes incoming physical mail, and automates downstream workflows like check deposits, registered agent filings, and routing. More than 15,000 businesses - from startups to enterprises like Gusto, Brex, and DoorDash - use Stable to handle mail from anywhere.
Anne Murray
Anne Murray is the Executive Business Partner in the Office of the CEO at Karat, the Seattle company that runs technical interviews as a service for companies hiring software engineers. She is the person who keeps a fast-moving executive suite running: calendars, communications, relationships, and the thousand small logistics behind a Series C startup. Before Karat she spent years as a senior executive assistant to C-suite leaders at Outreach and Zillow Group, ran her own consulting shop, and worked inside the studio that built Second Life. She is also connected to Karat's Brilliant Black Minds initiative, the company's mission to open access to engineering careers.
Caitlyn Pang
Caitlyn Pang is Director, Office of the CEO at InstaLILY AI, the New York startup building vertical AI teammates for the physical goods economy. A behind-the-scenes operator who works as a fractional Chief of Staff and COO, she is the person founders lean on to keep teams aligned and turn chaos into a plan. She sharpened that instinct through crisis years at the global nonprofit Mercy Corps, where she stepped up to support the CEO and cover the global board, and it traces back to her days reporting for The Harvard Crimson.
Carla Faraguna
Carla Faraguna is the Executive Assistant to the Chief Executive Officer at Substack, the San Francisco newsletter and media platform. She joined in 2024 after nearly seven years running operations and people functions at Golden (Recursion Inc), the knowledge-graph startup. Her path runs through HR and employee programs at Fandom (Wikia), cultural exchange work with the Asia Society and the Japan Exchange and Teaching Program, and a stretch of self-directed travel and volunteering across a dozen countries. She holds a master's in East Asia Studies from Stanford and a political science degree from Stony Brook.
Jenni Ellis
Jenni Ellis is the Executive Assistant to the CEO at CompScience, a San Francisco insurtech building AI control systems that aim to prevent one million workplace injuries by 2035. The right hand to founder Josh Butler, she runs the day-to-day machinery behind a fast-scaling, Series B startup. Before CompScience she logged operations and office-management time across some of the Bay Area's best-known tech names - Replicate, DoorDash, Instacart, and Dropbox - building a reputation as the steady operator who keeps founders and offices moving. Colleagues describe her as vivacious and enthusiastic, a natural leader who keeps tabs on the day-to-day flow of a business.
Julia Vasconcelos
Julia Vasconcelos is Sr. Director of Strategy & Operations and Chief of Staff to the CEO at Typeface, the enterprise generative AI platform backed by Lightspeed, GV, and Salesforce Ventures. A Brazilian attorney-turned-operator who pivoted from M&A law to fintech at Stone (where she helped drive the company's Nasdaq IPO), then earned an MS at Stanford GSB before landing at one of AI's hottest unicorns. She co-led Brazil at Silicon Valley, built a community of 200k in two months, and now sits at the intersection of AI strategy and executive operations in Palo Alto.
Lauren Green
Lauren Green is the Chief of Staff to the CEO and Head of Business Operations at Medeloop, a San Francisco-based AI clinical research platform that raised a $15.5M Series A in November 2024. A Stanford Management Science & Engineering graduate (Class of 2021) and former Division I swimmer who earned All-American honors, Lauren moved from PayPal's operations and engineering program management teams into the high-growth healthcare AI startup world, where she helps orchestrate strategy, business operations, and organizational development for a company rebuilding how medical research gets done.
Karina Baze
Karina Baze (El-Baze) is an Operating Partner at Khosla Ventures, one of Silicon Valley's most storied venture capital firms, where she works at the intersection of cutting-edge technology and commercial reality. A Stanford-trained operator with a career arc running from MuleSoft's scrappy East Division founding days through IPO and Salesforce acquisition, to leading GTM at AI-native companies Instabase and Hebbia, Karina brings rare depth to helping portfolio founders build revenue engines that actually work. Recognized as one of 100 Women in AI in 2025, she specializes in translating deep tech into customer outcomes - a skill set that is quietly reshaping how Khosla's portfolio companies go to market.
Sharon Chang
Sharon Chang is an Operating Partner at Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), where she manages fund and deal operations across the Venture, Seed, and speedrun funds. A seasoned operator with over 15 years in product marketing and product management, she previously led marketing at Rockmelt (acquired by Yahoo), directed Yahoo's Digital Magazines initiative, and honed her craft at Opsware and NEC. At a16z she's published definitive playbooks on product marketing and co-hosted podcasts with Ben Horowitz. Beyond the portfolio, she chairs the board of trustees at Woodland School in Portola Valley, runs half marathons, and is deeply rooted in the Bay Area community.
Vu Pham
Vu Pham is an Operations Partner at Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), one of Silicon Valley's most influential venture capital firms. As a deal operations partner supporting the Venture teams, he bridges strategy and execution at a firm that has backed companies like Airbnb, Coinbase, GitHub, and Roblox. His career traces a methodical rise through fintech and enterprise tech - from being the second support agent at WePay to leading product programs at Chime, technical programs at Palantir, and operations at Stripe - before landing at a16z where he helps portfolio companies scale and operationalize their ambitions.
Wael Jabir
Wael Jabir is Chief of Staff at Hustle Fund, where he serves as right hand to co-founder Brian Nichols. With an engineering degree from University of Calgary, Wael betrayed his technical roots to build businesses instead of bridges. He broke into VC without inside connections, previously working as a Venture Partner at Altra Venture Partners and in roles at Deloitte, ICChange, and AI Education Project. As an AI Product Builder and Advisor, he posts daily insights on AI trends and developments. At Hustle Fund, Wael helped launch Angel Squad, a community of 1,500+ angel investors who've deployed over $23M across 65+ companies. He's known for running founder events across North America, his near-death sea adventure, and being the global runner-up for most confusing name pronunciation.