Roxanne Petraeus of Ethena on transitioning from the military to tech, turning customers into evangelists, and building a company culture that matters
Description
This is an episode of January Ventures’ Beyond the Cap Table podcast, hosted by Jennifer Neundorfer. We aim to demystify the various parts of venture capital and highlight founders, funders, and other game changers who are building new networks and enabling the new establishment in the startup and venture world. Listen to the show wherever you get your podcasts.
In this episode, we speak to Roxanne Petraeus, Co-founder & CEO of Ethena, a compliance platform for modern teams. Our discussion with Roxanne covers:
- What she learned bootstrapping her first company and how it shaped her discipline when starting Ethena
- How her experience in the military prepared her to be a founder and CEO
- The secret to building and maintaining strong co-founder partnerships
- How to find internal champions and why they are critical for enterprise sales
- What founders should know about building relationships with prospective investors
- How to transition to a multi-product company, and why customer feedback is so important in that process
- How to build an outstanding internal culture within your organization
Roxanne Petraeus is the CEO and co-founder of Ethena. Ethena is the compliance platform for modern teams. Companies like Pinterest, Zendesk and Figma rely on Ethena's suite of admin- and employee- friendly training and compliance tools. After graduating from Harvard’s Reserve Officer Training Program, she was commissioned into the U.S. Army. She served on a combat deployment to Afghanistan and in training missions to Cambodia and Mongolia. After leaving military service, she worked at McKinsey & Company as a consultant before founding Ethena. Roxanne is a Rhodes Scholar and holds degrees from Harvard College and Oxford University.
United States
