Sydney Larson

I am an entrepreneurial team leader and company builder with nearly two decades of experience in early and growth stage companies. I am passionate about fighting climate change by leveraging innovation to produce products and services that are fundamentally better and/or less expensive than the status quo. There is immense power in aligning profit and impact. My sweet spot is building and leading high performance teams, driving cross-functional strategic initiatives, creating structure and operational excellence, and scaling processes. I’m a customer-centric, data-driven problem solver with a strong sense of urgency who drives toward action and can shift between the strategic and tactical. I particularly love that “awkward teenager” scaling phase of a company during and after significant growth. As Sunrun’s first employee, I helped to scale one of the largest home solar companies in the United States from the earliest days past Series D, working across a wide variety of functional areas. In my role as a founder and COO of Lily Bird, I’m proudest of two things: first, developing a brand and customer experience that our customers raved about daily and second, building a fantastic team and culture. The best compliment I've ever received is: "Sydney is like FedEx. She gets it there, on time." And, just for fun: I once made 200 new recipes over the course of a year. Highlighted Skills - SCALING | cross-functional leadership ∙ strategic initiatives ∙ go-to-market strategy ∙ process creation & process optimization ∙ policy definition ∙ project management ∙ business strategy ∙ P&L owner ∙ business operations ∙ goal setting & management (OKRs, KPIs) PEOPLE | team building ∙ recruiting & hiring ∙ team management, coaching, & mentoring ∙ career development planning ∙ performance management ∙ culture setting ∙ people operations CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE | customer need finding ∙ finding product market fit ∙ product launch ∙ business requirements definition ∙ vendor selection & relationship management ∙ software product management ∙ data analysis ∙ modeling ∙ customer support ∙ customer service ∙ field service