Partnering with Elicia

What a crazy few years. To join the partnership at a fund like AirTree is a dream come true. To do it alongside Elicia and know I’ll get to learn from her for the rest of my career is too lucky to imagine.

I feel so grateful for the trust the partnership is putting in us and for the opportunity to continue building on the strong foundations they’ve laid.

You all already know me well, so let’s talk about Elicia….

Elicia joined AirTree in 2016. Since then, she’s played a leading role in our investments in Regrow, Abyss, Process St, Different, Go1 as well as three yet to be announced investments. Her operational experience at LinkedIn prior to AirTree seeded a strong thesis around the Future of Work and gave her a unique perspective on building sales-led models in B2B SaaS that she frequently draws on when making investments.

But Elicia is much more than the sum of her investments. She’s the glue that holds AirTree together. In an industry characterised by individuals, Elicia is a dedicated team player. She is core to building AirTree the company — how we set strategy, define values, communicate with each other, and build a kind and empathetic culture within a team of self-motivated and ambitious individuals.

In many ways, Elicia is the person I aspire to become:

• She thinks of others first, always considering how our actions and behaviour could impact those around us. This empathy allows her to immediately understand customer pain points and build conviction around a founder’s product vision.
• She inspires trust. There is no problem I face that I don’t immediately think to ask Elicia’s advice on. The founders she works with benefit from this, knowing they can pick up the phone to share bad news as well as good and receive counsel through the ups and downs of the startup journey.
• She is a world-class operator. Give Elicia a project, and you know she’ll come back with a deeply considered strategy, set of actions, and she’ll always beat the deadline.
• She always does the right thing, even when it’s hard. Elicia acts with integrity no matter how high the stakes.
• She is the model for how to blend parenthood with an all-consuming career. She is 100% Mum with her kids and 100% AirTree at work. I’m consistently astonished at her ability to do so many things to such a high standard at the same time.

I frequently talk about AirTree as the perfect mix of both the smartest and kindest people I’ve ever had the fortune to work with. Elicia epitomises that blend — her intellect combined with her empathy should make her the first choice for any founder picking an investor they want to work with for the next decade.

Read more about Elicia and Jax’s promotion in the AFR