micayla is an operations executive and advisor based in san francisco.

over the last 15 years, i've held titles like chief of staff, director of operations, and vice president. but the job has largely been the same: figure out what's broken, build the thing that fixes it, and make sure the people around me are better for it.

my most formative work has happened at inflection points. at zynga, where the mission was to connect the world through games, i was part of the evergreen studio during their nasdaq ipo. it was my first look at what it means when a team moves fast enough to actually change something. at schoology, built to make digital learning more connected and effective, i worked alongside the ceo through scale and acquisition by powerschool, unifying the classroom experience for 20 million students. it was my first understanding of what it means to build something worth acquiring. at bark, the subscription company built on the idea that dogs deserved better, i helped navigate the operational complexity of going public via a $1.6b spac. i saw what it takes to carry a company through a defining market moment. at novo, a fintech built for small business owners overlooked by traditional banks, i was part of the executive team through a valuation run from $120m to $700m. i learned what it looks like to build real momentum inside a company finding its scale.

most recently i was vice president of operations at subquadratic, an ai startup that raised $20m, where i joined as employee #8 and built the operational infrastructure that let everything else work.

the thing i'm most tired of explaining: you can't scale what you haven't built. someone has to go first. that's usually me.

i've been told i have hard conversations without making people feel bad about it. i think that's because i actually believe most people want to do good work. they just need the right conditions, clear expectations, and a manager who tells them the truth with some warmth behind it. i had one leader who showed me what that looked like, and i've been chasing that standard ever since.

when i'm not doing this, i'm in a hot yoga class, traveling somewhere i've never been (35+ countries), lifting heavy things, or asking questions about how something works until whoever i'm talking to regrets bringing it up.