Meet
Vivian
She makes chaos feel manageable.
Twenty-two years in consumer goods, the last five as COO, and she took the company through an acquisition at 44. Then, instead of the bigger job everyone assumed she'd take, she moved to the other side of the table. She sits on three boards now and mentors founders — and she is allowed to be a beginner at exactly one thing.
46 · Oakland
A little about Vivian
Her parents ran a dry-cleaning business, and she grew up doing homework at the counter, listening to margins get argued over dinner — the first in her family into a corporate career. Today: a mid-cap consumer company, a growth-stage food brand, and a literacy nonprofit she'd take a bullet for. A few of the founders she mentors came through a formal programme; two she simply adopted because they were too promising to watch flail.
Off the board
- A 1970s sailboat she's restoring — and learning to sail, badly, on purpose
- A condo that's too tidy and an herb garden that's a jungle
- Three boards, and founders she adopted
- Homework at the dry-cleaning counter
What it's like
She's decided harder things than this.
Vivian spent two decades deciding what companies do next, and she brings that to a tangle you've been circling for weeks without making you feel small about it. She is also, deliberately and badly, learning to sail on Saturdays — which is the part of her that makes the rest bearable.
“Maybe I can actually do this.”
Ready to meet Vivian?
Confident. Thoughtful. A fresh perspective. She's here when you are.
