Maria Thomas Opens New i-Lab Speaker Series

Maria Thomas, interim CEO of the startup Glamsquad, recounted the ups and downs of her varied career during a talk at the Harvard Innovation Lab on Tuesday evening.

Ella M. Duncan ’17 high-fives photographer Steve Osemwenkhae after participating in his project “No Makeup Series,” which aims to highlight the natural beauty of women through headshots paired with personal reflections. By Isabel G. Alexander

Thomas inaugurated The Other Side, a new speaker series organized by the i-Lab that invites entrepreneurs from across the globe to share not just their success stories, but also “the failures and everything in between,” according to Jodi Goldstein, managing director of the i-Lab.

“We hope to bring in a number of different innovators over the course of the next couple of months to share the other side of their journey,” Goldstein said. “The path to innovation is never straight.”

The new series aims to bring in a “thoughtful and inspirational” element, allowing participants to learn from real-life examples, according to Goldstein. Most of the i-Lab’s previous events were focused on the practical aspect of entrepreneurship.

During the event, Thomas spoke about her experience of working in a variety of industries, ranging from financial institutions on Wall Street to governmental entities in Washington D. C. Since she entered the e-commerce industry several years ago, Thomas has focused on guiding companies through the early stages of their growth or transition into new business platforms, such as SmartThings and Etsy.

Thomas also recalled several setbacks that she encountered during her career. One such speedbump came as she was working with the founders of Etsy, an e-commerce website that focuses on handmade and vintage items, as the company’s chief executive.

“I experienced a lot of problems with the founders as the first non-founder CEO of Etsy,” Thomas said.

If she could relive her experience at Etsy, she said, she would do things differently.

“You have to get in and lead and trust your instincts. You can’t be deferential,” Thomas said. “And this is a major problem as a non-founder CEO.”

At the end of the event, Thomas shared the lessons she learned from her successes and failures, and offered advice to students interested in entrepreneurship.

“Be deliberate and thoughtful about the culture you want to create,” she said. “Have clear and repetitive communication about the things that matter, and use data and metrics to identify your strengths.”