Anna Baird

Venture partner at Madrona

Anna Baird is a venture partner at Madrona, the venture capital firm, and works from its Palo Alto base. Madrona's own biography describes her as an operating partner who advises fast-growing and acceleration-stage portfolio companies on go-to-market strategy, finance and operations. She joined the firm in 2022.^[1][2]

Madrona announced her arrival together with Wei Gao as a pair of new venture and operating partners. In that announcement the firm's managing directors made the case for the role in simple terms: early companies benefit from time with people who have already lived through the problems they are about to face.^[2]

The title has two halves that matter. As a venture partner she sits inside the investing firm's orbit, but her work is operational rather than deal-sourcing, with the stated job of helping portfolio leadership teams build the commercial and financial machinery of a scaling company.^[1][2]

Operating chief at Outreach

Her last full operating job before Madrona was at Outreach, the sales execution software company. Madrona's profile lists chief revenue officer as her most recent title there and chief operating officer as the earlier one.^[1][2]

As chief revenue officer, Madrona's welcome post says, she oversaw sales and sales development, customer success, professional services, member support and revenue operations. That is the whole customer-facing revenue chain in one reporting line, which is an uncommon scope for someone who began in accounting.^[2]

Madrona credits the Outreach period with a financing of more than $200 million at a valuation above $1 billion, and with growth from $25 million to more than $230 million during her tenure. These are the firm's figures as published in her biography.^[1]

When Semrush announced her to its board in March 2023, it identified her as the former chief revenue officer of Outreach, confirming that she had left that post by then.^[3]

From KPMG to finance chief

Baird started her career at KPMG and left as a partner after more than 17 years. According to Madrona she built the firm's technology practice there and served as global lead partner on Google, covering the period before its IPO and the seven years after, as well as on Intuit and other accounts.^[1]

She then moved into industry. At McAfee she was a senior vice president, and Madrona says she worked with the board and leadership on global controls and enterprise risk management and on the acquisition of the company by Intel.^[1]

Before Livongo, she was president and chief financial officer of RadiumOne, a data-driven marketing platform. On March 24, 2016, Livongo Health announced that she was joining as chief financial officer. The release also noted her 17-plus years at KPMG, where she was global lead partner on technology accounts including Google and Intuit.^[4]

Madrona summarizes the whole arc as more than three decades in technology with CFO, COO and president roles at public and private companies, and the firm's welcome post adds the CRO role to that list.^[1][2]

Board service

Semrush, the NYSE-listed online visibility software company, appointed Baird as an independent, non-executive director on March 6, 2023. She became the eighth of nine board members, joining alongside Steven Aldrich as the ninth. In the company's release she said she looked forward to working with the team as it widened its customer base and product line.^[3]

She also sits on the board of SeatGeek, the ticketing marketplace, and Madrona's profile identifies her as chair of the audit committee there.^[1][3]

Education

Madrona's biography lists a bachelor's degree in business with an emphasis in accounting from California State University, Fresno, followed by executive education courses at Harvard and Wharton.^[1]

Writing on go-to-market and AI

Baird writes regularly for Madrona Insights, usually with other Madrona investors. A June 2024 piece collects her advice on building and launching a great product, and an October 2024 article with Loren Alhadeff offered five lessons for founders aligning go-to-market strategy for fiscal 2025. Later pieces covered diagnosing whether a growth problem is about product, market or go-to-market (January 2025), building a predictable revenue machine (March 2025) and five non-negotiables for AI startups, co-written with Karan Mehandru (May 2025).^[1]

More recent titles show the same theme moving toward AI: a RevOps framework for 2026 (December 2025), new rules for fundraising in the AI era (January 2026), a June 2026 piece on how AI is changing startup sales, and a July 2026 podcast episode on why AI has made buyers harder to sell to.^[1]

Why she matters

Baird's value to founders is the combination on her résumé: audit-partner rigor on the finance side and direct responsibility for revenue at a company that reached a billion-dollar valuation. Few operators have signed off on the numbers and also owned the quota, and Madrona has built a visible advisory practice around that pairing.^[1][2]

For readers following go-to-market leadership, her recent writing is the most current public record of how she thinks about sales structure, fundraising discipline and the effect of AI on buying behavior.^[1]

On The Executive List

Anna Baird is ranked No. 55 on The Executive List (October 2026) in the Chief Operating Officers discipline. The list row predates her move from Outreach, where she was chief revenue and operating officer, to Madrona in 2022. The ranking reflects The Executive Review's own editorial Trending Score; it is not an outside award, and placement on the list is never sold. View the October 2026 edition.