Nov 17, 2022 - Economy

Communicator Spotlight: Elisa Schreiber, Greylock Partners

Photo illustration of Elisa Schreiber on a patterned background of abstract quotation marks.

Photo illustration: Aïda Amer/Axios. Photo: Courtesy of Elisa Schreiber

Elisa Schreiber spent her career as a startup operator and never could've predicted she would end up in venture capital.

Why it matters: Now, she runs marketing and communications for Greylock Partners and supports firm-backed entrepreneurs and portfolio companies like Discord, Rubrik, Airbnb, Coinbase and Roblox.

📍How she got here: Schreiber previously led marketing for the producers of Live 8 — the first live music festival to stream at scale — and helped produce the first TEDx. Most recently, she led global communications for Hulu.

  • "I’ll never forget the day that Hulu surpassed one million subscribers," she says. 'The entire team huddled around a digital ticker and waited for the moment. The cheering was deafening! "

📈 Trend spot: She has an eye on meme culture.

  • "It's the most defining characteristic of modern communications. It will be fascinating to look back and assess the impact meme culture had on societal interactions."

🧭 Navigating a bad news cycle: "Very rarely are companies caught completely off guard by a tough story, so one lesson is: be prepared."

  • It's also important to be as empathetic and transparent as possible in your communications, she says.
  • "And perhaps the most important lesson: never lie. Credibility is the only thing that matters."

☮️ De-stress routine: Exercise with Caroline Girvan's YouTube workouts or walking her dog.

📱Media diet: "I try to start my day with a win, so I usually play Wordle with my morning coffee."

  • On Sunday's she reads a hard copy of The New York Times. "You can't rely on an algorithm to keep you up to date," she says.
  • After work hours, she's binging "The Crown" or reading "The Widow Cliquot" by Tilar J Mazzeo.

🐦 Most-used app: "Twitter, by a lot."

🤩 Influenced by: VC personalities Hunter Walk and Nicole DeTomasso and on the brand side, she loves how Steak-Umm uses social media to comment on news of the day.

💡Words of wisdom: "Make decisions that reflect your personal core values, and you’ll never make a wrong choice."

Subscribe to Axios Communicators.

Go deeper