Ha Nguyen

Hi, I'm Ha. I'm the Founder & Managing Partner at NextStep. We support early stage founders on their journey to become master operators, company builders, and people leaders. We offer fractional & advisory COO services, centered around strategy, operational & people excellence. I'm an experienced startup executive with 22 years of deep expertise in building and scaling startups, design-thinking, culture building, and designing experiences to delight both customers and employees. I was most recently the Chief Experiences Officer at Swimply where my role was to maximize the success of Swimply’s hosts and guests, and build out our internal operations to maximize the company's and our employees' success. A career highlight, I was proud to have built Swimply from the ground up through a People First lens. Prior to that, I was a Founding Partner at Spero Ventures, an early stage venture capital firm investing in the things that make life worth living: our well-being, work & purpose and human connection. One of my greatest joys is supporting founders. Prior to moving into venture capital, I was a product executive at several early and mid-stage consumer marketplace startups. I started my tech career as one of the earliest product managers at eBay during a period of hyper-growth. I received my MBA from Harvard and BS in Economics from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. My core drivers are the following: connecting people through community, building products and experiences that have a positive impact at scale, leading with empathy, and elevating women and underrepresented minorities in the technology industry. I give talks around the globe on fundraising, building & scaling startups, strategy & operations, culture design, design-thinking, how to build products and experiences that customers love, and sharing my career journey. I'm on the Board of Women In Product (non-profit organization of 30k female product builders) and co-founded the Product Leader Summit (invite-only conference bringing together founders and VP-level product leaders). My passions outside of work include poker, football, cooking, throwing dinner parties, traveling, building relationships through networking and paying it forward, and spending time with my husband and 3 boys. Check out my website for my blog posts and talks: https://pokergirl.co