Techstars CEO Maëlle Gavet on preserving the start-up spirit at scale | Masters of Scale
About Maëlle
- CEO of Techstars, the world's largest pre-seed investor (2024)
- Former CEO of Ozon, scaling to $1.5B valuation & led $100M+ round (2015, 2011)
- Named to Barron's 100 Most Influential Women in U.S. Finance (2024)
- Former EVP of Priceline Group & COO of Compass, major scaled firms
- Author of 'Trampled by Unicorns: Big Tech’s Empathy Problem'
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Maëlle Gavet is the CEO of Techstars (@techstarsglobal), a pre-seed investor focused on early-stage entrepreneurs. It boasts a market cap of $111.6 billion, and supports founders in programs that span from Tokyo to Lagos to Alabama. Maëlle champions hard work, gratitude, and a questioning nature, qualities her grandfather imparted while she was growing up in France. She has carried her curiosity through a wide-ranging international career, in start-ups and scaled corporations. We hear lessons drawn from her vast experience, including the transformation of Ozon — the “Amazon of Russia” — in the early 2010s, to leadership roles in global travel and real estate. And we get a sample of the advice she often shares with Techstars’ founders, about how to balance their values and the needs of their company, always with an optimism about entrepreneurship as a force for good.
