Relentless and Adaptive: What Sets Exceptional Founders Apart

In this episode of the Leadership Quotient Podcast, Anna Magiera, Managing Director of Partnerships at ICLUB, shares how an accidental entry into venture became a long-term commitment to building the future through founders, investors, and ecosystems. Drawing on experience across consulting, private equity, startups, and venture investing, Anna explains why patience and humility matter so deeply on the investor side, and why the most exceptional founders are not just ambitious, but determined to reinvent systems rather than simply optimize what already exists. She and Lindsay explore the leadership traits that distinguish standout entrepreneurs, including adaptability, resilience, healthy ambition, and the ability to keep moving when markets, capital environments, or even geopolitical realities shift overnight. They also discuss the distinct strengths of Eastern European and Ukrainian founders, the importance of aligning vision between investors and leadership teams over time, and why one of the most valuable things an investor can do is translate ambition into tactics. The conversation closes with a forward-looking view on value creation: educating the next generation of angel investors, building stronger collaboration across ecosystems, and creating more opportunity through shared knowledge rather than competition alone.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Welcome to Leadership Quotient, a podcast by The Crucible where we explore how leadership teams and investor-backed companies are built, aligned, and scaled for impact. I'm your host, Lindsay Gazowski, and in each episode we'll talk with the people shaping value behind the scenes, from operating partners to investors to advisors to C-suite executives, about what it really takes to drive performance through leadership. On today's episode of the Leadership Quotient Podcast, I chat with Anna Magera, managing director at iClub, about why entrepreneurs need to be creative about funding, patience being the key attribute of successful investors, and why European founders need to think more broadly. Anna, welcome to Leadership Quotient. To give listeners some context, I was hoping that you could give a quick rundown of how you got into the venture capital space. It looks like, you know, you started out in pretty blue chip organizations from PwC and Ernst and Young. How did you transition from there into the really exciting venture space you're in today?

SPEAKER_00 1:30

That's a great question. And when I was kind of you know thinking uh about that, um uh yeah, I got a bit even nostalgic, you know, because I would say uh like a very short tagline. So I entered the space accidentally, uh, but I stayed by choice. Uh so let it sound like that, and I will explain. Yeah. So I as you rightfully mentioned, so I started from the consultancy, and uh, but what I I I was happy to work actually in the consulting part of these uh companies because you know that they are kind of uh more focused on audits. And uh when I joined, uh it was like first years, then they actually introduced these advisory uh teams uh to be working on performance improvement strategies and all that stuff, which was very, I would say, uncommon, uh, especially in Eastern Europe. So I joined that part of uh of uh these companies, and I'm I'm really lucky that I did because um that experience gave me from one uh side, you know, the structure and this approach that everything like there are best practices and there are like you know, there are great examples already how the companies might work and what uh could be kind of integrated and help uh new companies uh to work even better. But from the other standpoint, it gave me the opportunity to look at you know at how to improve things in the companies, that nothing is kind of you know craved in the stone, that things might be improved in innovation is the key. And I like that idea a lot. Um, but there was one little thing that got me thinking all the time that uh very often when we created a strategy or we worked on some you know uh performance improvement reports, etc., uh we presented them to the management team. And it was kind of you know that important milestone in after months of very hard work, and then presented it, and um, it was kind of you know uh great work done. Uh thank you all very much. And now we can kind of invoice our work to the uh to the client, and that's basically it. You know, nobody's going to do anything much about that because well it's it's great on paper, but you know, there are different things and there is the reality, etc. And for me, what that was something very strange and something was not working. I loved the team, I loved the work we we'd done because you know, working uh late hours, you know, uh staying on weekends, it it all was very uh common and and but done, you know, with the open heart. And we wanted to do that because you know, we wanted to do something great, but at the end of the day, I was kind of missing this single piece, and then um my kind of uh the manager uh that I was working with closely um told me, you know, um I was invited to lead a private equity firm. Um would you consider joining a private equity firm uh like back in 28, uh before the crisis? Uh so it was well, I could join. I don't really know what's that because I was mostly working with corporate, you know, uh world and enterprise, so not much with private equity, but yeah, why not? And that's how I joined, you know, and that's how I joined the industry in 28. Uh 2008, yeah. So we can imagine uh the year, the challenges we faced, but still um I wouldn't kind of trade it for anything. It was uh it was the right right transition. I entered the space, I saw uh how the companies uh could you know work with uh investment and what investment can actually help build, and how uh this money could be not just you know money spent, but this could be something that helped uh companies implement um great visions, you know, and become something bigger. Of course, private equity was a bit uh more focused on on uh later stage companies, but um as we worked, you know, in Eastern Europe, so we were happy to see also startups, not only you know, later stage companies. And startups, they kind of, you know, they kind of got me. It was so interesting to look at these new companies, new technologies, you know, biotech and all this, you know, something kind of new to me. And uh yeah, I think that that was kind of this turning point when I understand that this is what I really like. I want to work with entrepreneurs, uh, I want to help them in a meaningful, meaningful way, not just you know, putting a report that can, but probably finding the way uh or financing them or finding the way to improve their uh you know their operations and to work with these teams, learn from them. Uh and yeah, that's that's that was this uh kind of uh shift. And then I was happy to stay in the industry, changing roles uh very often. Uh so I was on the investor side, on the startup side, back on the investor side, you know, so very, very different. But for me, um, I I always say I believe that if you kind of join this industry once, you know, uh at some point, you won't be willing to step away. You can change the role, yeah. You can try different things, yeah. But I've seen only one example, and it's still very strange to me. I saw only one example in my like almost 20-year career. Then a person uh changed, like decided not to work in the industry and just she's doing completely different stuff, and she left. But otherwise, I've seen different, you know, transformations, uh, people doing different stuff, but still staying in the industry because this industry is about um about the future and about uh the way we will be living uh in 10, 20 years, right? And the way our kids will be living on this planet, and how we can make this better, and how can we, you know, um improve the way um we do things, we live, we breathe, we eat, etc. So yeah, I I really love this um this um journey and uh happy that I kind of you know joined it accidentally and stayed. Well fantastic.

SPEAKER_01 8:05

And it's interesting. The consulting world has such brilliant ideas that come out of it, but often they're not implemented and for sometimes good reasons, sometimes less good reasons. I when I was in business school, I heard a stat, and I don't know how apocryphal it is, but that 90% of McKinsey projects are designed to validate ideas the management team already has. And so if you're functioning in that environment, it's not adding the value that the private equity or venture space can in helping businesses to grow, build, and scale. Um, I'm curious about the person who left this industry. Oh, why?

SPEAKER_00 8:52

Why I think, well, it's interesting because uh from her personality, I think she's she's a great fit and uh in uh in all regards, with all types of her skills, because she's smart, she's fast, she's uh fast learner, you know, etc. etc. But I think she she was kind of a person who wanted uh wanted results fast, like you know, very fast to see the the outcome like fast. And uh, well, she she she uh she she she's gone through couple a couple of transformations. Now she's in real estate, uh, and she likes this kind of tangible thing, you know, you see, you feel, and she also had had uh and has some brands, you know, so she likes to to create things, to build things or to manufacture things, real tangible things that you can have in your hands and you can see the value like like uh getting it. And I think that that that was the the reason because like for like for us in this industry, sometimes uh like the patience is the key, right? Sometimes we wait for the result, and not every time we see uh like the uh real um outcome of of the whole uh of the whole um I would say uh work done uh just in the moment or even in a couple of years. And the patience, I think, is the most the most challenging part uh for for many newcomers like investors, for example, like private investors, to you know, uh cultivate this patience in yourself of okay, I'm not pushing it, I'm not kind of expecting anything, but I'm of course I'm trying to be helpful if I can, but I'm not kind of pushing myself onto that. And uh probably this part, uh, and and these are the reasons why this person left. But yeah, that that's I think that that's the only uh case I can I can remember. Otherwise, like people do different things, but you know, uh it was funny. One time uh I I I was moderating a panel where I had investors and uh you know, uh like different investors talking about how it was during the pandemic. We gathered with investors to discuss, okay. So what are you doing now? How is it affecting you, your portfolio, you know, what to expect, etc. Because you know, we had to do something, so we arranged this panel to discuss. And there were different um uh investors from my network I invited, and it was so funny. Then one in like during the introduction, uh, one of the investors he introduced himself, he said that he started as a founder, and then that he transitioned to this uh role, and then there was another investor sitting there, and she said, Um, sorry, I I want just I just want to say, um, do you remember me? Uh, I I don't know whether whether you remember me. He said, Of course I do. Well, we met and he then you had this great startup, and we actually did invest because we thought that uh and you succeeded. And you know, I I I'm really sorry we didn't, you know, it was so funny that they met on this panel like two investors already, but he said, Oh, that's okay, you know, it's it's already some kind of a past story. But it's so interesting how people really change their roles, but still stay in the same, you know, in the same bubble, maybe. Yes. Uh, but I like I like this bubble so much.

SPEAKER_01 12:07

It's a fantastic bubble, and it's that's part of why I was curious about the person that didn't find the right role for themselves in this space, because there are such varied roles at various stages of businesses, whether it's on the investing side or the operating side. Uh, but even more than that, people get sucked in and you stay as a part of this in the ecosystem. And even those who are investing often have side gigs where they're also doing some operating things, or people who are, you know, multi-time entrepreneurs investing as active LPs. And it's a fun space to be in because there's such an incredible amount of knowledge and intellect and innovation, as you said. But I love what you're talking about with patience. That's a really keen insight there. So talk to me a little bit about, you know, you've seen sort of the gamut of private equity to working in the actual businesses to investing on the more of the startup side. Talk to me a little bit about the differences in the leadership traits that are important in each of those different groups.

SPEAKER_00 13:26

Yeah. Uh that's that's a great one. So um if if to speak about uh investors, I would definitely uh like um remember about this this patience, but also you know this humility. You need to remember that you you you don't know um everything. And it's it's okay that some some things will fail, but you have to just you know to kind of um say, okay, that's the way it is. So what do we do now to make still you know make some results, right? But um if you don't accept that, um you might you know you might make some really, really expensive mistakes. Uh but if you do and you say, okay, we make mistakes, but let's let's you know let's find out the ways to uh to diversify, you know, to to um like to increase our chances, etc. So it will work much better, definitely. Uh patience and this, you know, this um this ability not to kind of push yourself too much and kind of this uh the desire might be might be a good one to help, right? But sometimes this uh way not to interfere too early or not to you know push your ideas onto founders and let them decide and let them find the ways might be much more helpful, you know, than than than just going there and solving everything for them. And uh sometimes investors are like you know, they're very hard not to interfere. I understand that because it's it's their money, and if they see that something is going, you know, not the way it should go, uh it's difficult uh to keep yourself like, you know, uh, but but still that's that's an important thing to have uh some you know some belief in the people you invest in. And that that's actually why you invest in these people, right? Because you believe that these people are able to execute and they are able to bring to the table what they are promising to bring. Um is to speak about founders. Um I I I actually I'm lately I'm thinking about this one thing, and I that insight came to me during one of the conversations with my colleague about founders, and we were discussing different um portfolio companies, and you know, I was trying to think, okay, but they're like there are like already hundreds of them, so right? But how do we how we identify that that profile, you know, the person who can actually really be this outliner? And I think that this person with the right uh healthy ambition, but also with the this ambition to, I don't just want to optimize or automate things, I want to reinvent systems, I want to create something new, I want to create this new you know, kind of value. And for me, that that's really when I started to think about those founders that really stand out from our kind of you know portfolio, I can I can say that those are the guys and the ladies who decided that, okay, so if I'm not just you know doing it a bit better than my competitors, I'm just changing the completely, you know, we have to kind of not just build it from scratch, of course, but we have to change the approach. We have to think differently, we have to reinvent and rebuild. And I think that that's very important. Um, and maybe the second one would be the kind of you know, the ability to be flexible and adopt this adaptivity is so important. Um, we've seen it. Um, you know, I'm Ukrainian, so I saw how, you know, how how the how the world is, you know, can come to a country just just one day, you know, and you have to just think, okay, so what do we do now? And I'm so um, I'm so impressed by by how Ukrainian founders today are building like successful companies globally. So they they've seen what is happening and what what was the decision, not just you know, okay, so we just you know, we close it, we forget about it, and we what can we do? No, they just decided to go to go to other markets, you know, to uh to to reinvent their products, reinvent their strategies. And I think this adaptivity, okay. Today we have the crisis. What do we do, you know, with the company? Well, how do we pivot from that? And that's not every person can do that. The same as, you know, not every person can um, you know, reinvent the system. It's not like for everyone, and that's okay. That for example, I'm not sure that I'm the person who can, you know, just do that. Maybe it's just you know, those outliers out there, but those people are really the people worth betting on. And when you see such a founder and you just, you know, um, it's it's you can see it from the conversation with such people. Just, you know, they are so passionate and they are so, you know, they are so persistent and so resilient. This word has become the word, I think, of a couple of years already. Um, and they're kind of unstoppable. And I think that's that's really important because, well, you can't build something great uh if you are, first of all, not ambitious too much, or if you, you know, you are afraid of any challenge that can can come to come your way. But if you are like kind of strong enough, adaptive enough, okay, we change, we private, we fle you know, we are flexible. And yeah, that with that, I think that um a lot of things are possible.

SPEAKER_01 18:53

And that's interesting. One of the things that we test for with the crucible is relentlessness, but it sounds like it would be really interesting to find that people that have that combination of relentlessness and intellectual curiosity with a systems focus, because then you'd create an ability to say what could be different, how can I operationalize that, and how can I drive that forward until we ensure success? Yeah. Interesting. Well, I'd love to hear a little bit more. You know, you touched on Ukrainian adaptability in the present state. You've worked with businesses across Europe. Um what are the differences that you see in successful leaders across Europe that others might not be aware of from the outside?

SPEAKER_00 19:44

Well, definitely uh the thing that uh like it is um, I would say um by default, as uh the um the market is kind of um smaller, right? Uh you just have to think in a way of okay, so if I want to go big, how do I go? I don't go just uh uh country by country, I go pan-European, right? And this vision, it's it's very important. So if I'm not just going to you know, going globally, because well, it's also kind of uh not always the way, but okay, but if I'm going, I'm going, I'm going either global or I'm going pan-European. So I'm going far beyond my my you know the my country, you know, or my my ecosystem, which is small, I should go beyond that. And I see because you know, in in in the US, it's kind of okay. So we have a couple of uh states, and that's already kind of enough, you know. That's already a huge market. And I'm not saying that this means that uh founders are lazy or whatever. No, they they then they go, you know, they go further and they they cover other frontiers, absolutely. But you know, for when you don't have that uh that scale, so you need to create that scale, and you like create it and you need to create it from the day one and and think kind of you know globally. So that that's that's one of the things. And um also I think that um uh European, like especially Ukrainian entrepreneurs, they are very risky. They are very risky, and they, you know, they are kind of they're not afraid to test, to try, to fail, to test, to try to fail. Um, because we say that there is this culture, like in the US, because the US ecosystem is much more uh mature, right? That that this failure, like it's okay to fail, to build one company, then to build another, and to succeed in you know, in the third and the fourth, and the fifth, and that's fine. But I I would say that it's uh maybe maybe it has changed with some time because I've I've been in this industry for 20 years, and yeah, it's it has changed, it has matured. But now I can see that you know people are becoming much more uh riskier and they are happy to try. to try things. They are not, you know, they are okay. Yeah, it might not work, but okay. But that that's this kind of um entrepreneurial, you know, spirit that is there. It's really um yeah, it's really interesting to see how how it works. Because before, um when you know in in Eastern Europe, it's more it was more about some, you know, I would say very classical industries and kind of you know more hardcore products, etc. Not so digital, not so, you know, tech. So now when the transition and changed, the vision changed and the context changed, and of course it also changed with years. I see now how these entrepreneurs are you know also using this um uh the way they are this brave brave approach uh in the digital world uh as well and it works perfectly well um also I think that one of the things is that as the capital is much more um accessible in the in the US ecosystem because it's just the like you know I just was speaking with the with uh about uh Angels uh and Angel investors and I said you know I I think that people like like people in the US they are just born with this idea okay I I I can Angel invest you know I can Angel invest. And it's not like that in in you know in Eastern Europe. So with this capital not being so accessible especially early stage people are kind of very creative in the ways how they find you know how they find the opportunities to fund their companies from the day one so how they participate in different programs how they fund different grants how they you know uh you know they create the opportunities for themselves to be be able to uh to build the companies and I would say that uh you know despite the fact the capital is not so accessible in eastern europe still there are so many companies great companies that that has been built here you know and and has started here and I think that that's uh that's something great that maybe is not uh kind of applauded so often but that's really a huge challenge and uh you know uh and of course the situation is changing and there are more private investors there are more opportunities especially after uh the war started there were more tension which means you know more investors as well and more capital as well more opportunities but still uh this way that okay so um we don't have uh we don't have the investors what what can we do you know still to build this company still anyway you know and that's I think uh really a great trait and also something that uh how makes this company not so dependent you know on the investors uh which which is very important because we know that companies the being dependent on investors uh they might be not so sufficient and not not so you know um uh scalable and uh not so sustainable right so that's that's an important thing I think yeah that's that's an interesting point as well I wonder sometimes with the readily accessible ecosystem in the US if we're losing some of that scrappiness that early entrepreneurs you know seem to have that could build the great businesses because they're working out of you know very resource constrained environments as opposed to now where you can almost always find some money somewhere. Yeah flipping that question on its head so what are the challenges that you see from your the leadership teams in your portfolio what are they still having to work on well uh you know it's um I think the most important is the like the the like aligning the vision aligning the vision uh of the founding team and the investors because well um we still um we still have a bit different motivations right for this uh when the founders building the company and the the investors financing the company the motivation is still a bit different of course all of us we want this huge you know result and we want this carrot at the end we all want that because then everybody will succeed but still the division is is is uh it might be different and being aligned as early as possible and keeping the that alignment also important thing because sometimes when you when like the investment is investment happens like at the moment everybody is kind of clear everybody's on the same page um everything is agreed upon you know presentations that pitch decks etc uh so yeah uh shaking hands and all uh everybody's happy but then you know as company evolves this vision also evolves and sometimes there is this kind of not not really aligning that uh as you go might be harmful uh like might be harmful for the relationships but also might be harmful for the outcome right when the like there is the this kind of we lose this the the the common goal right we lose this common goal so that's that's an important thing to be aligned all the time to uh that's why for example uh in our portfolio we have and in our team we have this important um kind of you know uh tradition that our partners they have to have uh as much face-to-face meetings with the founders as possible so if they're going to the geography because we have like uh now four uh different um regions in our portfolio but still like we have for that we have our partners in all these uh regions so that we have to meet personally we have to talk we have to discuss and we have to make sure with the we are aligned and you know and if if something changes like everybody's on the same page we know that you know uh that has changed and now we have to kind of adopt and update our strategy update our vision and how we you know how we move forward I think that's a challenge and um yeah and and and that's that's important. And for example for private investors as we in iClub we work a lot with private investors for them as well it's sometimes for them it's difficult to to understand uh this this you know the idea like where are we going and why we are going that direction why we are not going this direction it seems like shorter and easy easier uh but you know sometimes this kind of bigger picture is not that easy to comprehend so yeah in iClub very often we are kind of you know becoming a translator of this you know huge ambitions and huge visions into very clear goals and you know ideas of okay this will bring us here this is important because right that is crucial for all of us as you know so we we need to translate that for everybody to be on the same page that's fantastic and I love that you guys are able to create that consistent vision amongst yourselves but also that concept of translating ambition into tactics is something that I haven't heard before but I think very cleanly represents what the best venture investors really can do for these companies and for their investors.

SPEAKER_01 29:24

So let's talk a little bit about the next wave of value creation.

SPEAKER_00 29:29

What do you see as the future of leadership in this next wave of what's coming well um for me the leadership is about um you know creating the um creating the opportunities and also um about sharing a lot and now for example in in our team in iClub we are very much focused on sharing the knowledge because again if we're talking for example for about investors and angel investors in in eastern europe they there the that there have been you know a lot of things done for the education of founders there are many programs accelerators you know um different different uh courses whatever so everything is like for a founder to be a better founder for a CEO to be a better CEO but there is not so much for an angel investor so what do you do as an angel investor how do how do you select companies how do you invest in companies what does it mean to be an angel investor uh what does it mean to be a part of the syndicate so there are so many things which are obvious in for example in in the mature ecosystems but not so obvious for private investors in not such mature ecosystems and now for us uh the goal is to educate educate educate it we do it every day all the time so we try to uh you know to create this uh like opportunities by educating people more about them and giving the opportunity to to you know to uh to have the access to that uh but again uh having access without knowledge and without understanding is not that helpful right so uh we know that we have the opportunity like we have the access but okay if we have the access but uh now we need to focus a lot on on on uh educating and that's one of the missions that we have uh and very important one for us to uh to actually make this educational uh part uh really stand out and uh help our uh private investors to be the part of this you know larger uh larger uh journey and also be able to bring value uh to the companies uh as as they join uh the um the the deals right so and and now it's it's also my mission a lot and i would say that another one it would be uh the you know the uh the collaboration uh we've seen how you know there are so many uh pieces of this puzzle and there are so many players on the market but i think that this uh being aligned again and being kind of you know collaborating we can bring much more value to the like to to to every to uh like to portfolios to investors to to to the newcomers right to new founders to uh to new um uh to to new people in the industry because uh because when we are united when we have kind of one uh more or less clear goal uh then it is um it is it is possible to build much more value than when we are separated and we are not doing you know uh like everybody's doing their their job their place and nobody knows who's doing what right uh that that's kind of secret and i love that for example so we we meet many partners and when we start conversation and we say we want we don't want to you know to um like compete we want to partner we want to find the ways how we can actually bring value to each other to share and when i find find same same leaders i'm i'm i'm really happy and then uh you know the best insights the best conversations the best results are actually coming from that point when we decide okay we are not competing because we don't have any any any grounds for that let's collaborate let's find the ways how we can do what we are doing um better together and that becomes like you know that that's kind of that effect is of collaboration i i'm i'm i'm really sometimes uh very very much inspired by that how it can uh increase the the value multiply it you know um and and make much more difference than just doing that alone so i would say that learning how to collaborate in the right way bringing value to the table not just coming okay so okay you should do that for me no just come and say okay let's find a way how we can bring value to each other right because we can do that uh together and um and that's that's I think is is a great way way forward and that wraps up another inspiring episode of Leadership Quotient.

SPEAKER_01 34:15

Many thanks to Anna for sharing her experience and globally informed perspective to our listeners if you found this conversation valuable be sure to subscribe to Leadership Quotient wherever you get your podcasts. You can also learn more about the Crucible and how we're helping investor backed companies align leadership teams for scale at the crucible.com. We'll see you next time for more real conversations on leadership, talent and value creation.