Erin Schaefer

I'm currently an advisor to the CEO at General Catalyst and previously served as the company’s Chief Operating Officer.  Before GC, I was an operator who ran many functions - Sales, Operations, Go-to-Market, BD / Partnerships, and even Finance and People Operations.  Most recently I was a member of the executive team at Niantic, a late stage augmented reality start-up that builds beloved mobile and headset games and geospatial intelligence-based solutions for businesses.  I served as GM for the US Studio and Game Publishing, led Niantic’s go-to-market functions, and partnered with our technical founder to run the company.  Prior to Niantic, I spent nearly 15 years at Google.  My first decade was focused on growing start-ups within Google’s Ads business - first Google TV Ads, a precursor to today’s programmatic connected television, and then YouTube where we scaled the business dramatically.  I then shifted my focus to lead teams in very scaled operations - Support / Customer Experience and then Trust & Safety (where I ran a turn-around) - followed by Partnerships.

I have a B.A. in Political Science from Stanford University and a M.B.A. from Harvard Business School.  I am currently President of the Board at the Hillsborough Schools Foundation and previously served on the boards of BUILD, focused on igniting under-served youth via entrepreneurship and at Parca Auxiliary, offering services to enrich the lives of people with developmental disabilities. My two kids and husband would say I love (besides them and in no particular order) the Golden State Warriors and many (all) other sports, walks, friends, trees, volunteering, pop culture, our two dogs.