Life sometimes throws curveballs. Over the past year, Guild founder and founding CEO Rachel Romer has navigated an extremely challenging, unexpected one - she's recovering from a stroke at age 34, with 2 young kids. Thankfully, Team Guild was well prepared - in big part due to Rachel's awesome leadership. A clear mission, vision, strategy and game plan; a healthy & engaged board; a deep and broad bench of outstanding, collaborative, super aligned leaders who clicked into action to run Guild in Rachel's absence. Rachel's right hand for many years has been the exceptional Bijal Shah, who has run almost every part of the company. She stepped in as interim CEO - and was recently named permanent CEO. I imagined the scenario, and turned out to be true - from her hospital bed, one of the first things Rachel said when she awoke from a coma was "Call Bijal." They are an amazing example of deeply held trust and respect between colleagues. Thanks Emma Hinchliffe for sharing more about Rachel and Guild's unexpected curveball, and the company's mission and opportunity. It's bigger and more important than ever, given increasing talent shortages and AI causing a need for re-skilling for all kinds of work, faster than expected. #reskilling #technology #management
Kirsten Carroll
1mo
Thanks for sharing this story! Wonderful to see Rachel’s success in shaping her career and life to keep growing post-stroke. So much is possible! There’s a great opportunity to look at the intersection of stroke recovery and return-to-work, as the population of young stroke survivors continues to grow, and many need to navigate a path to support themselves and their families. So many need to learn adaptive or new skills when they can’t do the same job the same way after a stroke.
Jordan Sher
1mo
Guild has a huge presence in Denver, yet I had no idea that it was going through this transformation. What an incredible story.
Bulbul Gupta
1mo
Grateful Rachel is better, and for such a partnership. What do you think were keys to their leadership success in this being possible in an emergency? Would love if they’ve written something together!
Meryl Simmons
1mo
This is an amazing story and example of #samepage #focused #leadership. Thank you so much for sharing this Aileen Lee. To the #leaders and team at Guild, you’re an inspiration on so many levels.
Judy Wong
1mo
Inspiring to hear the story behind Guild. We are a client and have appreciated it as a recruitment and retention tool.
Rina Hoffer
1mo
#Building #Guilds is #worth #ourtime #myheart #aches 💔
Gianna Gaudini
1mo
Thanks for sharing this.
DataInsta
1mo
Such resilience and teamwork in the face of adversity! What inspired your unwavering commitment? Aileen Lee
Nick Stabile
1mo
Thank you for sharing her incredible story, wishing all the best during the recovery process!
President, CXO, Board Member | Startup Founder, Advisor | SaaS, Web 3, AI, Digital Communities + Platforms | Co-Founder BlogHer, Optionality
1moRemarkable story; remarkable founder!