Venture with Grace

Chris Koehler is the Chief Marketing Officer at Twilio. With over 25 years of experience in leading marketing, sales, and product teams across various domains and industries, Chris is a seasoned and versatile leader who thrives on growing and scaling new products and businesses. As the Chief Marketing Officer at Twilio, he is responsible for global marketing strategy, with a focus on expanding brand awareness, and driving messaging and positioning across Twilio's Segment and Communications platforms. All while continuing to build Twilio's world-class marketing org and its incredible culture. Chris brings a unique combination of skills and expertise to his role, ranging from customer analytics, web analytics, social media, predictive analytics, multivariate testing, optimization, branding, product marketing, product management, sales engineering, account management, and customer success. He has a passion for marketing, analytics, digital trends, and building high-performing teams that deliver exceptional results and value to customers and stakeholders. Chris also has a strong academic background, having completed the Business Analytics Program at Harvard University and a B.S. in Marketing from George Mason University.Topics:Building Marketing Organizations for HypergrowthThe Evolution of B2B SaaS MarketingAI's Impact on Marketing Strategy and Execution at Enterprise Scale#B2BMarketing #SaaSLeadership #Twilio #ProductLedGrowth #CMOInsights

Shravan Narayen is a Partner at IVP, where he invests in founders who are deeply driven to solve meaningful customer problems. He has worked across every stage of a startup’s journey—from early product development to IPO—which helps him support teams with real operating experience. At Snowflake, he saw how big technical improvements can completely change how businesses operate. At Confluent, he learned that building a great product and successfully bringing it to market go hand in hand. Earlier in his career, he worked at early-stage startups, which gave him a deep respect for the process of finding product-market fit. Shravan believes that keeping an open mind is one of the most important qualities in venture—every conversation with a founder is a chance to learn something new and potentially discover the next big company. Port cos: Perplexity, Eightfold.ai, Baseten, Chainguard, SublimeSecurity, Cortex, Glean, and Lumafield. Topics:What It Really Takes to Scale Enterprise InfrastructureHow to Spot Founders with “Irrational Compulsion” EarlyGrowth-Stage VC in the AI Era: Noise vs. Signal#GrowthStageVC #EnterpriseAI #ProductToIPO #StartupScaling #TechnicalFounders

Arjun Pillai, CEO and Co-Founder of DocketAI, an SF-based AI startup transforming revenue enablement. He previously served as Chief Data Officer at ZoomInfo after it acquired his second company, Insent.ai, and is widely recognized as a thought leader in data strategy and revenue operations. With clients like ZoomInfo, DocketAI has raised $20.3M to pioneer the world’s first AI Sales Engineer, helping B2B sales teams instantly access insights from their documents (Slack, Salesforce, Google Drive, etc.) and drive revenue efficiency (delivering results like a 22% increase in revenue per seller). Arjun is a serial entrepreneur with two successful exits. Topics: AI-Driven Sales InnovationExpert Insights on AI & Sales EnablementBuilding AI sales Engineer #ai #sales #engineer #saas #zoominfo

Maryam Banikarim served as the CMO at major brands including Nextdoor, Hyatt Hotels, Gannett, NBCUniversal (SVP), and Univision. Known for her mission-driven approach and cultural fluency, she has consistently transformed legacy companies by revitalizing their brands and deepening community engagement. Beyond the corporate world, Maryam is the co-founder of NYCNext and The Longest Table, grassroots initiatives fostering connection and creativity in public spaces. A proud New Yorker and daughter of immigrants, Maryam uses her platform to champion empathy and the power of storytelling.Topics: From Corporate CMO to Founder & Top StorytellerCommunity Building as a Competitive EdgeBuilding Brands with Purpose#PurposeDrivenLeadership#BrandStorytelling#CommunityBuilding#MarketingInnovation#Entrepreneurship

Brendan Baker is a Partner at Rackhouse VC. ~~~~~This episode is brought to you by Verivend. If you’re a GP or LP looking to simplify the capital raising and deployment process, Verivend is here to help. Trusted by over 800 funds and managing more than $2 billion in transactions, Verivend offers a secure, streamlined payments platform designed specifically for private capital markets. Say goodbye to manual reconciliation and repeated follow-ups - raise and deploy capital faster and with greater transparency. Ready to make your fund operations smoother? Visit Verivend.com and see how easy it can be.~~~~~Brendan began his career as a materials and civil engineer before joining AngelList as its second employee to manage most of the platform’s first 10,000 deals. After that he joined Greylock, where he built systems to systematize venture with data, process, and code. Brendan has since worked with top firms to build venture systems, including one of the first algorithmic capital auto-deploy platforms, before spending six years as a Partner at Ridge Ventures investing in companies tackling massive, unglamorous problems like ERP, supply chain, and finance. He has advised over 1,000 founders on their fundraising, including as a formal advisor to companies like Aumni (acq. By JP Morgan), Valence, and Passport. Topics: Data-Driven Venture Systematizing Investment DecisionsInvesting in Boring Why Unsexy Markets WinVenture Operations Beyond Deal Making#VentureCapital #AngelList #SystematicInvesting #DataDrivenVC #EnterpriseInvesting

Simon Kim is a principal at SK Telecom Americas, where he focuses on strategic investments and partnerships across AI, data center infrastructure, and next-gen connectivity. SK Telecom Americas' portfolios includes high-growth startups like Anthropic, Perplexity AI, Lambda Labs, TwelveLabs, Together AI, Inworld AI, and GGWP. Prior to this, Simon managed direct and LP investments at SK Group, backing companies such as DataRobot, Republic, and Consensys. With deep experience across venture, strategy, and operations—including time at CLO Virtual Fashion and a Coinbase-backed crypto startup—Simon brings a cross-border, cross-sector perspective to frontier tech investing. He holds an economics degree from UC Berkeley.Topics:Strategic investing at the edge of AI, cloud, and telcoHow global corporates identify breakout frontier techLessons from backing Anthropic, Lambda, and Inworld AI early#AI #CorporateDevelopment #DataCenters #5G #FrontierTech #VCInsights

Aparna Chennapragada is the Chief Product Officer at Microsoft AI for Work, where she leads the development of AI-powered productivity experiences across Microsoft 365, including Copilot and Designer. With over 25 years of experience in tech, Aparna previously served as CPO at Robinhood and spent more than a decade at Google, where she led groundbreaking efforts in visual and voice computing—including launching Google Lens and working on Google Assistant. A product visionary with deep technical roots, she holds degrees from IIT Madras, the University of Texas at Austin, and MIT. Aparna also serves on the board of eBay and was named one of Fortune’s Most Powerful Rising Executives. Her work sits at the intersection of AI, product design, and reimagining how people interact with technology to work smarter and more creatively.Topics: The Next Interface Shift: How AI Agents Are Reshaping WorkScaling Product at Every Stage: Lessons from Microsoft, Google, and RobinhoodFrom Zero to Impact: Building Iconic Products That Define New Behaviors#AIProductLeadership#FutureOfWork#GenerativeAI#StartupStrategy#WomenInTech

Adil Ajmal is the Chief Technology Officer at Fandom, the world’s largest fan platform in entertainment and gaming. With over two decades of leadership across high-growth startups and tech giants, he has led engineering, product, and data teams through multiple successful exits. Before Fandom, he served as CTO of LendingHome (now Kiavi), where he scaled its fintech infrastructure to support billions in mortgage volume. Earlier, Ajmal was Vice President of Engineering at Amazon following its acquisition of TenMarks, where he helped expand Amazon's edtech initiatives. He also held senior engineering leadership roles at Intuit (post-Homestead acquisition) and was VP of Engineering at Posterous, acquired by Twitter. Throughout his career, Ajmal has built and scaled engineering organizations from early-stage to post-acquisition, bringing a product- and people-first philosophy to every company he’s led.Topics:Building high-performing engineering teams from startup to scaleHow fan engagement is evolving in the gaming and media ecosystemsLessons on leadership and product strategy from Amazon, Intuit, and Fandom#MediaTech #GamingIndustry #EngineeringLeadership #ProductStrategy #StartupToScale

Alan Du is a Partner at PayPal Ventures, where he leads investments in AI‑driven fintech, enterprise SaaS, cybersecurity, and e‑commerce infrastructure. Prior to that, he was a key investor at Revolution, a Washington‑based growth equity firm focused on scaling enterprise software and technology‑enabled services. With a global operating and investing mindset honed across markets, Du combines deep domain expertise in finance‑tech innovation and Go‑to‑Market strategy.Topics:Evaluating AI-first fintech startups: metrics, market fit & risk factorsNavigating security, compliance & trust in enterprise SaaS dealsScaling AI-powered commerce & Web3 infrastructure from pilot to adoption#VentureCapital #FinTech #AI #SaaS #Cybersecurity #ScalingStartups

Maria Zhang is the CEO and Co-Founder of Palona AI, a startup building emotionally intelligent AI agents to help consumer brands scale personalized customer experiences. She previously served as VP of Engineering at Google and Instagram, and led applied AI initiatives at Meta. Earlier in her career, she was CTO of Tinder, VP of Engineering at LinkedIn, and VP at Yahoo following the acquisition of her startup, Alike. With experience leading teams of over 1,000 engineers and building products used by hundreds of millions globally, Maria brings deep expertise in AI, product engineering, and team building. She also served as a Venture Partner at IDG Capital and was named one of the “Top 100 Women in Tech to Watch.”Topics:Building emotionally intelligent AI agents for modern brandsLessons from scaling engineering teams and consumer productsApplying practical AI to solve real customer experience problems#AI #RetailTech #CustomerExperience #SaaS #WomenInTech #StartupLeadership #EngineeringManagement #VentureCapital