Gayaneh Davoodian on the Ability to Quickly Adapt in Startups and in Life

This week's episode features Gayaneh Davoodian.

Gayaneh took improv classes in high school, college, and the Upright Citizens Brigade. Currently she works as a venture capital (VC) Scout for an accelerator and a couple of seed stage funds.

Previously she was Chief of Staff at Sequel.io, Head of Enablement at a Stealth Startup, and Program Manager of People Operations and Talent Acquisition at Curated, where she developed the company’s Talent and People Operations department at the start of Series B, through Series C, oversaw headcount growth of nearly 3x employees, built processes from scratch as well as identified and implemented necessary tools to maintain this rapid growth.

She has a Master of Science in Entrepreneurship and Innovation from USC, and an Associates degree in Fashion from the Parsons School of Design.

During this episode we discuss…

• When and why she first took an improv class
• Improvising as a media buyer
• Overthinking
• Improvising as a recruiter at a Series B startup
• Her ‘aha’ moment
• Career paths outside of being an engineer, doctor, or lawyer
• The unknown of startups and the need to improvise
• The Chief of Staff role
• Working with different kinds of people
• Reacting in improv and what it teaches us about reacting in the workplace
• Using improv as a venue to practice expressing yourself differently
• The toppling over of suppressed emotions
• Creating 2 creative t-shirts

From Gayaneh, when asked how improv has improved her life offstage,

“In a work setting, it helped me stay dynamic. You end up working with all different kinds of people (especially in startups). The improv skills I learned allowed me to listen and react to a person/situation as opposed to assuming/staying rigid in my thoughts and expressions. It helped me connect with people more.”

Connect with Gayaneh on LinkedIn and Instagram @gaya_dav

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