Sara Rona’s Post

We are thrilled to welcome Sara Rona of Silicon Valley Bank to our #StepSF24 Venture Track! 🙌 Sara expertly manages a global portfolio of tech startups and venture capital firms, providing essential cross-border banking services as they expand into the US market. Don't miss the chance to hear from Sara and many other industry leaders! 🚨 Early Bird has been EXTENDED, but for a limited time only. Grab your tickets now 🐦 https://bit.ly/3RUCSUz

How can a banking partner fuel your startup's global growth? We talked to Sara Rona, Managing Director, SVB Global Gateway (Head of Europe, MENA & ANZ) about how the right banking partner can fuel your startup's expansion, across the pond and the globe. SVB shares in our mission at GBx: to support the British innovation economy. SVB has supported the UK/US cross-border ecosystem for over 25 years, through networking opportunities, products designed for startups and venture funds' at every stage, and key market insights. You can read more here: https://lnkd.in/eR683VMJ

📸 We’re thrilled to share a highlight from the intimate dinner co-hosted by us and Silicon Valley Bank during NY Tech Week! 🥗 Held at ilili Restaurants, MENA founders and investors enjoyed a delicious Lebanese spread and four hours of engaging conversation. 🙏 A huge thank you to SVB's Managing Director Sara Rona and the Global Gateway team for their generous support. Global Gateway is a dedicated international business development team that helps VCs, VC-backed startups, and growth-stage companies expand into the United States and international markets from innovation centers around the world. They have been supporting the MENA ecosystem (specifically UAE, Jordan, Egypt, and Turkey) for the last 8 years, with the mission to empower visionary high-growth companies by assisting with all of their cross-border banking needs in the US. Special thanks to those who joined from the Viaka network & beyond and made it a wonderful evening of conversation and networking: Sherif Nessim, Zach Finkelstein, Ehab Elsonbaty (PhD), Amel Abid, Aboudi Al-Qattan, Christian Vezjak, Kamil Saeid, Katie Diasti, Nourin Abu, CPA, Dima Ayyash, and of course, our founder and VP of SVB Hani Azzam 😍

🌟 Last Week's Highlights: La French Tech New York Event n US Expansion hosted at SVB's offices overlooking Bryant Park! 🌟 Thank you Stephane Levy at Cooley LLP, Sara Rona at SVB and Chris Warner at Erevena for joining me to discuss the dos and don'ts of global expansion. We had an incredible evening with this panel of experts sharing their insights on expanding with global thinking being crucial from the get-go. Here are some takeaways: We were at their offices, so we had to ask "Where is SVB at?" SVB now operates as SVB under First Citizens Bank and Sara Rona is helping companies come to the US covering EMEA more than ever! 💰 Fundraising Landscape: Of course we had to start with this! While fundraising has improved, the market remains uncertain for the end of the year due to the election just like most election years. Now is the time to refine your KPIs and prepare for better opportunities in 2025. Lyonshare who supported the event can help with this part. 🇺🇲 Founder’s Presence Matters: One of the founders should move to the US (NYC, 2nd largest tech hub globally! 🗽) to lead the business on-site. Datadog being a great example although the 2 Founders were French and started the company in NYC immediately. But, there are exceptions! Canva, a great case study with young Australian entrepreneurs succeeded in the US while maintaining a strong company culture from afar by building a powerful American community early on. Dataiku is another example that went global quite quickly because of the enterprise Saas nature of the business requiring a US presence quickly due to to the global dynamics in that space. Going global depends on the nature of the business. 🌈 Embrace Your Culture: This can be a unique advantage in hiring top talent, as Zendesk has demonstrated. Offering equity is essential for US hires—they’re motivated by success stories and potential IPOs, creating new millionaires, which is less common in Europe. Spotify a great example of European success also has fun cultural parts coming from Sweden! Fika (pronounced fee-ka) is the Swedish tradition of taking a break in one's day to enjoy a cup of coffee or tea and a little something to eat, usually a baked good or open-faced sandwich. 🦎 Recruit Chameleons i.e. talent that can bridge geographies: Sara Rona being a living and breathing example, being French Afghan and grew up in the US. Huge thanks to our amazing La French Tech New York president, Caroline Faucher-Winter, for opening the event. Founders, don’t miss out on these French Tech NY events—you’ll walk away with invaluable tips to scale and opportunities to mingle with investors! Join our whatsapp group, link in comments. Ariel Serber Tomer Joshua Elan Fox Jessica Sophia Wong Tori. Hanson Gene Murphy Anne-Laure Peytavin Mondoulet Clara Devouassoux Clara Chappaz thanks for being part of this international community builders' crew and supporting founders in NYC! #management #technology #venturecapital #innovation