I bumped into an old friend on the street.
And ended up getting my dream job and helping her invest $1B.
Stefanie Layne and I worked at the same treasury group at PayPal.
She had a special gift: the power to get stuff done.
Years later, I ran into her on the street in San Francisco. When I told her I
was looking for a new role, she put me in touch with John Christensen, another
ex-PayPal colleague.
John hired me at LendingClub where he was the VP of treasury.
We were a client of Silicon Valley Bank, whose mission and culture I loved.
5 years later, SVB hired me to run their Corp Banking Consumer and FinTech teams
for NorCal.
But things have a funny way of circling back.
3 months ago, Stefanie called me out of the blue while I was mountain biking.
She was now leading treasury at Unity Technologies.
And she needed me to go over their IPO investment policy.
I sprinted home and spent the whole evening on the phone with her, marking up
the document.
The next evening we did the same thing.
Her board approved the policy. The company went public and raised +$1B.
And they even hired SVB as their asset manager
Maybe it was serendipity. Fate. Good fortune.
But I like to believe that every single connection you make—
Can open doors you never knew existed.
Posted by Ilya Klets on LinkedIn
link: linkedin.com/in/svbilya
And ended up getting my dream job and helping her invest $1B.
Stefanie Layne and I worked at the same treasury group at PayPal.
She had a special gift: the power to get stuff done.
Years later, I ran into her on the street in San Francisco. When I told her I
was looking for a new role, she put me in touch with John Christensen, another
ex-PayPal colleague.
John hired me at LendingClub where he was the VP of treasury.
We were a client of Silicon Valley Bank, whose mission and culture I loved.
5 years later, SVB hired me to run their Corp Banking Consumer and FinTech teams
for NorCal.
But things have a funny way of circling back.
3 months ago, Stefanie called me out of the blue while I was mountain biking.
She was now leading treasury at Unity Technologies.
And she needed me to go over their IPO investment policy.
I sprinted home and spent the whole evening on the phone with her, marking up
the document.
The next evening we did the same thing.
Her board approved the policy. The company went public and raised +$1B.
And they even hired SVB as their asset manager
Maybe it was serendipity. Fate. Good fortune.
But I like to believe that every single connection you make—
Can open doors you never knew existed.
Posted by Ilya Klets on LinkedIn
link: linkedin.com/in/svbilya