Long Form Bio
Mona Sabet is a scale-stage operator, strategist, and board advisor with 20+ years of turning complex B2B technology businesses into high-performance, high-value companies. She works with founders and executive teams to define strategy, build systems that scale, and architect the operational discipline required to turn momentum into durable growth — whether that path leads to IPO, acquisition, or category dominance. She is the co-author of Sail to Scale: Steering Startups Clear of Mistakes from Launch to Exit (August 2024), a business book for startup and scaling leaders, equipping them with the tools needed to avoid the cycle of repeating past errors and instead chart a course toward lasting success in any business environment.
Mona has helped companies double revenue in a year, clean up the “data exhaust” that stalls growth, and structure M&A that creates real long-term value. As Chief Corporate Strategy Officer at UserTesting, she helped lead the company through its IPO and its $1.3B acquisition. During her tenure there, she built the corporate development, partnerships and legal teams from the ground up, secured the first set of technology partnerships for the company, a number of acquisitions, and the company’s $100M funding round.
Previously, Mona served as Corporate Vice President at Cadence Design Systems (NASDAQ: CDNS), Mona rebuilt the corporate development team, led multiple acquisitions, and ran strategic transactions and venture investments, delivering tens of millions of dollars in incremental revenue. Mona has also been an operator in two early-stage startups: Coverity (acquired by Synopsys) led the market in automating the identification of software vulnerabilities. She also co-founded Viblio, a startup that pioneered automated tagging of user generated videos using machine learning and computer vision.
Today, she’s SVP of Strategy & Operations at AFS, a GCG company, where she is scaling a 100K-SKU industrial distribution business through data integrity, process transformation, and smart automation.
Beyond the operator’s seat, Mona is deeply involved in shaping innovation ecosystems. She advises university accelerators, including Berkeley SkyDeck, and the Western Morrissette Entrepreneurship Institute. She is a board member and advisor for a number of deep-tech founders, She also works on the structural issues that determine whether regions create successful startup ecosystems.
In addition to her corporate leadership, Mona is a passionate visionary and inspires others to play a bigger game. She co-founded ChIPsNetwork.org, a global community for women in tech, law, and policy. She also founded and continues to lead HiPower, a vibrant community of leaders championing executive women poised to shape the future of technology and beyond.
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