At Series A, You Can’t Scale on Autopilot
-- by Erica Akitani-Bob
In my previous life as a Chief of Staff at a Series A company, I could have used someone like Genna. When I started looking for an executive coach, my friend Gibran had a shortlist of recommendations — his former boss, Genna McKeel. Before launching her own coaching practice, Genna led global programs for founders as the Head of Global GTM, Marketing, and Operations at Google for Startups. In this interview, we talk about what she’s hearing from founders right now—and how they’re using Q4 to reset, refocus, and lead with clarity.
You’ve coached founders through every stage of growth, but Q4 brings a unique mix of urgency and reflection. What are you noticing most in leaders right now, and how do those conversations tend to begin?
Q4 is a tough time — not just for founders, but for leaders in general. You’re managing up, down, and across while trying to keep your team and yourself motivated. The timeline feels compressed; people are checking in and out for the holidays, and everything starts to feel a little more reactive. What I often see is that leaders go on autopilot. They forget the basics — delegation, conscious leadership, managing their own energy. They’re focused on investors, updates, or that one difficult employee, and they lose sight of how they’re showing up. A lot of what I do in this season is hold up a mirror. Sometimes I’ll pause a conversation and say, “Let’s slow down for a second — where are you right now as a leader?” That moment of reflection is often all it takes for them to reconnect to their authentic leadership style. Because while you can’t control the chaos, you can always control how you show up in it.
You spent over a decade at Google for Startups working closely with founders. What did those years teach you about what it really takes to grow a company, and how has that shaped the way you coach today?
That experience brought together my operator background and my love of coaching. I led global programs for founders — mostly Seed to Series A — across 40-plus cities, and we saw every type of challenge imaginable. What struck me most was how universal the struggles were. Whether a founder was in Lagos, London, or San Francisco, the questions were the same: How do I balance speed with strategy? How do I lead through uncertainty? How do I stay connected to why I started this in the first place? It also showed me that founders don’t just need frameworks; they need reflection. Sometimes I’m a coach asking powerful questions. Sometimes there’s a mentor moment — offering a tool or an experiment they can try. My goal is to bring both: practical support and the space to think more deeply about how they lead.
Listening to Genna, I kept thinking about how often we see the same thing with our founders. The strongest companies don’t treat legal as a formality — they use it to stay aligned. Whether it’s how equity is structured, how decisions get made, or how partners work together, the clarity shows up everywhere. At All Places, we help founders build with that kind of alignment from day one, so when the pace picks up, nothing breaks — not ownership, not relationships, not momentum.
When everything feels urgent, how do you help a founder separate signal from noise and stay anchored to what truly moves the business forward? What does a founder’s approach to prioritizing reveal about how they lead?
Prioritization is really about energy management. Frameworks like Eisenhower or “do, dump, delegate” can be helpful, but the real work is slowing down long enough to look at what’s on your plate and ask what’s truly worth keeping. Saying no is often the hardest part. When I work with founders, we’ll literally map it all out — every meeting, every recurring task, every decision they’re still too close to. Then we layer in energy: Where do you feel engaged versus depleted? What actually moves the business forward? It’s about awareness and intentional design. Once you see your energy patterns, you can start incrementally shifting from default mode to designed mode – creating space for the work (and life) where you focus on what matters.
You and I have spent time on your Time & Energy Audit framework, which reframes energy as something leaders can measure and manage. What surprises founders most when they start paying attention not just to where their time goes, but where their energy goes?
What surprises people most is how often they’re operating from their zone of competency — the things they’re good at but that drain them. That’s where burnout hides. The real goal is spending more time in your zone of genius — the overlap between what you’re good at and what gives you energy. That’s where your creativity, your leadership, and your biggest impact live. When founders actually track their energy, they start to see clear patterns. Maybe they love one-on-ones but dread all-hands meetings. Maybe performance reviews give them energy, but fundraising doesn’t. That awareness alone is powerful. And when they delegate the draining work to someone who loves it, not only does their energy rise — so does their team’s engagement.
At the Series A stage, many founders reach the point where the company’s growth outpaces their capacity to stay at the center of every decision. How do you help leaders step back while ensuring the precision and purpose that got them this far carry through their teams?
This is the moment when founders start to shift from building to scaling — and that transition can feel disorienting. You’re moving from doing everything yourself to trusting others to carry it forward. The word I hear most resistance to is process, but process is actually what creates freedom. Clear structure — operating rhythms, accountability systems, defined goals — gives founders the ability to step back without losing visibility. Culture is just as critical. One of my mentors said, “Culture is how people make decisions when you’re not in the room,” and that has always stayed with me. When your team understands your values and decision-making lens, you can step back with confidence because alignment doesn’t depend on you being in every conversation.
True accountability isn’t about pressure; it’s about ownership. What do you see in leaders who hold themselves and their teams to high standards in a way that strengthens both trust and motivation?
They model ownership – taking responsibility for outcomes, not just actions – and invite their teams into that same accountability through trust, transparency, and follow-through. You see it in how they coach instead of fix, clarify expectations upfront, and give feedback that builds confidence rather than compliance. True accountability in these leaders strengthens motivation because people feel both trusted and responsible for something that matters.
Building a company often feels like driving a car while fixing the engine — and what worked early doesn’t always get you to the next stage. How do you help founders recognize when the way they’ve been leading no longer serves the company’s growth?
I use a similar metaphor — building a plane while flying it — because that’s exactly what it feels like. You’re leading, evolving, and building infrastructure, all at once. A clear signal it’s time to evolve is when a founder is spending 80 percent of their time in one area — product, sales, people — at the expense of everything else. That’s usually the moment to hire, restructure, or rethink where you’re spending your energy. The truth is, most founders already know what needs to change; they just haven’t created the space to see it. That’s where I often start — with time. I’ll suggest “CEO days” or short “CEO sprints” where they step out of the day-to-day to reflect: Where is your time going? What do you need to start, stop, or continue? How much time are you spending on vision, process, and people? Those reflection habits are small, but they’re what help founders and move from founder to CEO.
As founders plan for the year ahead, what mindset or habit do you most hope they’ll carry forward?
Most founders plan for the business — revenue, hiring, goals — but forget to plan for themselves. I encourage leaders to ask: When did I feel most in flow this year? What feedback really changed how I lead? What am I ready to let go of — a habit, a belief, a control that’s no longer serving me? Your company grows as you grow. I like to use the Design Your Life dashboard which helps you zoom out and asks you to assess your life across work, love, health, play. It’s not about “perfect balance.” It’s about conscious trade-offs. Knowing where you are so you can decide – intentionally – where to go next. Then, you can make small, intentional shifts. Over time, those are what create sustainable leadership.
Is there anything you’d add — something you wish more founders heard this time of year?
I often ask leaders this question (inspired by my mentor): How many people on your team will sit around the Thanksgiving table and tell their family they love working at your company? That’s the real measure of culture. If you can create an environment where people feel proud, energized, and valued — that’s leadership worth celebrating.
Conversations like this remind us that clarity isn’t a one-time achievement — it’s a practice. Genna helps founders and executives create the space to lead deliberately and build companies that can keep up with their ambition. Her coaching brings the same discipline to leadership that we bring to structure: intentional, sustainable, and built to last. Learn more about her work at gennamckeel.com.
