Meet the Team: Jenny Redling

Q&A with Silicon Foundry’s Chief of Staff

Originally from San Diego, Jenny Redling (@jennyredling) attended the University of San Francisco to study Politics and Psychology and has been living in the Bay Area ever since. She started her career in nonprofit development, but then made the transition to the corporate venture capital industry when she joined the Foundry team in 2014. Fun fact: Jenny’s quarantine staples include Scattergories, PBS cooking shows and her stationary bike in the garage.

You are one of Silicon Foundry’s earliest team members. How has your role changed since you joined, and what are you currently focused on?

I joined the team six years ago as an Executive Assistant. Today, as Chief of Staff, my role has expanded with the evolution of the company. My current work focuses on supporting leadership success, building internal relationships and facilitating connection through internal communications.

What excites you the most about your role at Foundry?

Being a trusted advisor. Lending an ear to a teammate. Knowing I’ve helped to shed light on a murky situation. Injecting levity and fun into the workday. In the field of innovation advisory, we are evaluated on our output and the outcomes they enable, which are predicted by the quality of our inputs. When my work facilitates high quality inputs across the team, that’s when I get most excited.

What “superpower” do you bring to the team?

Hmm…does creating a stay-at-home version of the Food Network show “Chopped” for your colleagues count as a superpower?

As a key driver of team culture, what do you find most unique about the Foundry team?

We live in a deliverable-filled, quantifiable world where team culture can sometimes be viewed as a nice to have, that is, after the work gets done. Therefore, one of the most significant and rewarding parts of my job at Silicon Foundry involves the intuition-based work I do with my team to maintain an awareness around our culture. When we are in tune with each other and ourselves, we are more apt to unlock new ideas and build stronger relationships in the process, which direct our team up a path of great success. My colleagues are uniquely perceptive and bighearted — two distinct qualities that fuel everything we do in service of our Members.