Jenna Velardi Washington, DC

Jenna Velardi is a senior commercialization leader, bringing over 20 years of expertise in technology transition for both government and private sectors. Her specialty is turning innovations, ideas, or technologies into profitable products or services in the market while overseeing revenue-generating functions and driving overall growth strategy.

At the Defense Advanced Projects Research Agency (DARPA), Jenna served as the Manager of Program Execution for the Commercial Strategy office where she built the program for the Embedded Entrepreneurship Initiative. She led a team to establish end to end operating processes for the program to scale, which led to the successful expansion into five new regional hubs. The Embedded Entrepreneur Initiative works closely with dual-use technologies from Defense Sciences, Strategic Technology, Tactical Technology, Microelectronics, Innovation Information and Biotechnology. She also held key leadership roles in the creation of DARPA New Ventures and the Minimum Viable Product funding initiative.

At Talipay, Jenna led a team of five individuals as the Vice President of Sales. She established revenue and operations processes from the ground up in the pre-revenue fintech company. She led the company to revenue in Oil & Gas in addition to managing operations & implementation to ensure successful deployment and client retention.

Jenna was the second employee to join the founders at Engage. She was brought on the team pre-revenue to commercialize their logistics SaaS platform in the Oil & Gas industry. In the first year she led the company to revenue at 175% of their ARR target. By the second year they hit 145% of their ARR target and by year three they hit 126% of their ARR target. Her cross-functional leadership successfully grew the company to over fifty people by 2022. Jenna led a Revenue team of ten individuals securing multiple Oil & Gas supermajors. She also led the corporate strategy effort to secure a government contract with the Air Force.

Jenna’s experience includes an extensive background in go-to-market strategy, market research, product development, partnerships and licensing. Her past executive responsibilities typically focused on revenue strategy development, strategic planning, growth initiatives, sales leadership, market integration and cross-functional leadership.

Jenna graduated from the University of Colorado, Boulder with a Bachelor of Science in Political Science. She trained her golden retriever to qualify as a therapy dog in the Pet Prescription Program for Children’s Hospital of Colorado where they spent four years visiting the kids. She also has spent time in the Commander’s Key Support Program for the Air Force.