29: Transitioning from Founder CEO to VC with Partner at boldstart ventures, Ellen Chisa
Backing a budding leader is always easier when you’ve already been a successful one…
Once a Founder & CEO, now investing in technical founders as Partner at ‘boldstart ventures’, Ellen Chisa’s enlightening story covers a seldom spoken topic - transitioning out of leadership.
Her perspective is a fascinating one; join us on Leaders Unscripted to discover how the CEO role has shaped Ellen’s wise perspectives.
This Episode Covers:
- Common issues for first time CEOs
- Particular challenges in startups
- The compromises you make with yourself, and implicitly with your team
- Transitioning into a VC role
- Management vs leadership
- Suzan & Ellen’s childhood experiences in Michigan
Episode Highlights:
“For me to be a Founder, a lot more of my personal mission is around helping people build things, which could be through accessing capital, through teaching, or through building tooling of various types.” - 8:00 - Ellen Chisa
“Compromises you make with yourself become something you have implicitly asked every other person on the team to put up with.” - 14:35 - Ellen Chisa
“If you're a venture backed founder, you're exposed to venture capital, which means you meet a lot of really smart and interesting people who are investors. So I think it's kind of hard to then not consider it at some point as an option.” - 22:35 - Ellen Chisa
“You can lead without being given any formal authority to do so at any point in your career.” - 29:45 - Ellen Chisa
“When you feel like you're a victim to the circumstance, you kind of have to say, ‘Well, here's the circumstance I'm in, where do I go from here?’, you can't dwell on bad things happening to you as a leader, because frequently they do.” - 32:55 - Ellen Chisa
Links & References:
Constellary: https://www.constellaryhq.com/
Suzan Bond: https://www.linkedin.com/in/suzanbond/
Ellen Chisa: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ellenchisa/
boldstart ventures: https://boldstart.vc/