Warm Intro #01: Lia Siebert and the Magic of High-Performing Teams
A new series interviewing leaders we admire about what it means to build a great team and how you know you’ve found a fit
Welcome to Warm Intro, a newsletter for the Liftoff connector community. Every couple weeks, we’ll share inspiring stories about what it means to build a great team and how you know you’ve found a fit.
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We’re kicking off our new interview series with
, an executive product leader who has an incredible breadth of experience leading product for Strava (the #1 app for runners and cyclists), as VP of Product at Cleo (a fintech app for Gen Z) and as VP of Product for Craftsy, an education platform for professional creators.Lia was central in launching the Stanford d.school and managed teams to produce more than a dozen courses on design thinking, business strategy and innovation.
Beyond all of this, Lia is an incredible “connector” — a mentor and leader who is continually opening doors for others and connecting great people to opportunities. We spoke to Lia about the magic she’s experienced on the best teams she’s been a part of, and how to build one.
If you know someone who you’d like to hear from in the future, feel free to reply to this email and tell us about them.
— Eleanor
Q: On Liftoff we’re building a community of people who are incredible “connectors” — who are often opening doors for others and connecting them to opportunities. Who is one person who has opened a door for you and changed your life?
: I unexpectedly decided to go to business school after a few years working as a medical device engineer, and when I arrived I felt completely out of place. Unlike others, this wasn't a path my parents had taken, part of any lifelong plan, or something my company was encouraging me to do. I spent more time drawing and building things by hand than I ever did in Excel.The MBA community was collaborative and more diverse than I initially thought, so I didn't feel like an outsider for long. But I did find myself on the opposite side of campus often, seeking refuge from "Financial Accounting" in the labs and workshops where I originally studied and felt most like my creative self. There I met JP, who also lived in both worlds, as a professor at the Stanford GSB and a founding faculty member at the Stanford d.school. I joined his Social Entrepreneurship course, and from there he connected me to an incredible opportunity to stay on and work at the Stanford d.school after graduation. It was one of those unique, unlisted, create-your-own-role kind of opportunities.
Teaching at Stanford and working with teams on innovation strategy (and making 1/5 the salary of my other, more traditional post-MBA job offer) was not an obvious choice for me, or one that I ever could have anticipated. But JP knew that I would thrive there before I did. I trusted his ability to connect the knowledge he had about me and about the team I would be joining, and I decided to go for it. My entire path since has been influenced by that choice.
Q: Help people find their fit. How do you think about building teams and creating the conditions for an incredible fit?
: Balancing my team is always how I start thinking about who to hire for a role. I try to pinpoint what new dynamic the group needs, and whether the new member will bring a new, distinct perspective that we can learn from.On one team I joined, I immediately noticed that the product culture was very different than my previous teams. Many people came from banking or consulting backgrounds, and I noticed that they were almost religious about making decisions based on data, needing to run tests before making a recommendation. I remember thinking, who here has a point of view that doesn’t rely on backwards-looking data? Where's the person who can “play it forward,” more like a movie than a dashboard? I didn’t have that person on my team, so I went looking for them. Of course these behaviors had a lot to do with the company culture, so hiring was part of the work to develop and shift things.
At the size companies I’ve worked at—companies with hundreds of people, not thousands and thousands—I also can’t afford to have someone who is only good as an individual, in their own bubble. I want to hire people I believe will make the entire team better. They aren’t just 10x individuals, they can 10x the people around them. I look for those amplifiers.
Then, depending on the company or role, I tend to look for:
Magnets for talent and collaborators
Acts like an owner
Passion for their craft
Light-hearted, optimistic
Development goals that align with me/their manager and the environment
Q: Help us fix hiring. What’s a hiring experience or process that you’ve taken inspiration from?
: Before I accepted my offer at Strava, Steph Hannon, the CPO, told me to chat with a few people that had worked for her—essentially do a reverse reference check. She gave me a range of names, not just people that would tell me rosy stories. That offer seemed so intuitive but it really surprised me at the time. Those people were very honest with me. The things that they were critical of were obviously not deal breakers for me, but instead helped me get to know her and get our relationship off to a quick start. I remember thinking, who is this person who is offering this proactively, who is opening up so generously so early? Steph continued to lead with this raw, honest style and turned out to be an incredible manager—the best I’ve ever had.
Q: You’ve now worked at several successful companies with high-performing teams. What makes for high-performing teams and why are they so important to companies?
: One CEO of a company I worked at just didn’t believe in teams. They thought all teams were slow, and handicapped by consensus — that shared decision making was a farce, and what we needed was boldness and ownership. Bad teams exist, sure, but I could never understand that perspective unilaterally. I’m obsessed with teams! I grew up playing sports and I cannot think of something big or important that I have ever done that could have been accomplished alone. It’s fun to work in groups. You get to draft off of other people emotionally. And groups of people have different things they can bring to the table.When I taught at the Stanford d.school, their whole philosophy was that you study in a silo—you get a degree in biology or education or engineering—but you’re never going to work in the real world that way. You’ll probably work with people who speak a different language or have a different knowledge set than you do. The magic is not in the depth of your own expertise, it’s in how you make a group’s expertise work together. It takes people with different disciplines coming together to solve the biggest, messiest problems.
From what I’ve seen, the companies that optimize for the solo artist more than teams can do well in the short term (raise money, achieve growth milestones), but if they don’t invest in the culture, the issues start kicking in. Higher churn, organizational slog, elevated hiring needs. And they fail at tackling the really big, complex problems.
Q: You are an incredible connector who has changed many people’s careers. What motivates you to connect people?
: There is nothing better than helping a friend or former colleague discover a team they might not have otherwise found. The things that create a great match often have little to do with what’s on the JD or the resume, so if I have insight on what someone wants next, or the style of the hiring manager, founder or product culture, I enjoy connecting them.I have been fortunate to be a part of a few magical teams, and know first-hand that the outcomes are better, the day-to-day is more fun, and personal and professional growth is 100x what it would be elsewhere. There are too many important problems to solve to let talented people suffer or have less impact because they are in the wrong environment. It's also just fun to see great people get connected, even if the opportunity for them to collaborate is months or years later!
Thank you, Lia, for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us!
Exclusively for the Liftoff community:
HIGHLIGHTED SEARCHES
The team at BioRender has started early interviews for a Head of Product Design. They’re building the Figma/Canva for scientists, are already highly profitable and expanding their design team. They’re seeking a proven leader with experience designing B2B products. If you know people who could be a fit, feel free to suggest them or reshare here.
The team at Summer Health has just started a search for a Director of Marketing. They are building the leading consumer platform for pediatric care, have just raised a Series A and are seeking someone who can drive all marketing initiatives across performance marketing, brand and partnerships. If you know people who could be a fit, feel free to suggest them or reshare here.
HIGHLIGHTED PEOPLE
Several truly world-class candidates have come to us through the Liftoff community. As an experiment, we’re highlighting the connectors who have surfaced these candidates, who can connect you to them.
Eleanor Morgan has endorsed a CMO interested in consumer health & wellness startups. This person comes from two decades building consumer health & wellness companies as VP of Business Development, CMO and CEO.
Lily Rogath has endorsed a Product and Growth lead interested in roles at software companies. This person has experience building and scaling companies, and has held product, growth and operations roles at high caliber consumer marketplace, social and enterprise SaaS companies.
Jake Moross at Torch Capital has endorsed a Business Operations lead interested in biz ops / GM roles at Series A+ startups. This person has worked for multiple omni-channel businesses and led growth and GTM operations.
How to connect: Create a search on Liftoff and we’ll share it with the connector named above! We will be facilitating this flow directly in the product soon.
Have someone you want to endorse? Just email us at eleanor@liftoff.xyz. We will keep all information confidential.
Liftoff connects you to incredible opportunities and talent, through people you trust. Learn more here.