CEO Factory or Just Lucky
- Sheila Lirio Marcelo, Founder and CEO, Care.com
However, not everyone wants to be a CEO. We also have alumni who are function leaders at other successful New York City tech firms:
- Alain Benzaken was Vice President of Technology at TheLadders for five years. He is now the Senior Director of Software Engineering at Buddy Media Salesforce.
- Ofir Shalom was Vice President of Engineering at TheLadders for five years. He is now the CTO at Group Commerce.
- Angela Romano Kuo started as a recruiter with TheLadders, working seven years before becoming Vice President of Human Resources. She now is the Vice President of Human Resources at SecondMarket, Inc.
- Leslie Semegran started as a marketing manager at TheLadders in 2005 before working her way up to Vice President of Marketing and Engagement, reporting directly to me. She is now Vice President of Marketing at Care.com.
As previously mentioned, TheLadders also proudly promotes from within. For instance, I promoted two leaders to the executive rank, just last month:
Kyri Sarantakos was promoted to Vice President of Engineering at TheLadders. He joined the company in 2005 as a software engineer. During the past seven years, he has moved up the ranks to become a manager of core architecture and development, an application architect, and, most recently, a principal software architect.
- Selena Hadzibabic was promoted to Director of Product and UX at TheLadders. After graduating from Dartmouth College, she joined the
company in 2006 as a junior community associate, an entry-level position. Subsequently, she was promoted to product manager in our U.S. operation, and then became the sole product lead for two years in our former UK operation, where she was based in London before returning to New York in 2011.
If you are a tech professional in New York City and are looking for your next challenge to enhance your skills and your career, join TheLadders! Why?
You may say: “My friend is starting a company and I can be the VP of Technology and get a lot of options.”
Yes, that may be true, but is your friend giving you the leadership training necessary to succeed in that job? Will you be out of a job in six to 12 months because the company did not raise sufficient capital or you do not possess the skills required to lead and drive performance from a team? You will learn that skills on the job at TheLadders.
You also may say: “I have a generous cash offer from Amazon, Google, or Facebook.”
What is going to make you successful are the people you work with, the challenges you will face, the opportunity you have to influence the strategy, and your access to leadership. As a software engineer in New York working for Amazon, Google, or Facebook, you may never be exposed to Jeff, Larry, or Marc. At TheLadders, you will get frequent exposure to the CEO. At TheLadders, we won’t give you the answer to a problem. We will give you a problem statement and will ask you to determine the answers that fulfill our shared vision.
Page 2 of 3 | Previous page | Next page