Paulina is an entrepreneur, an angel investor (current portfolio of 12 companies), a TEDx speaker and a founder of GrantTree, started with a purpose to help tech startups navigate the complex world of government funding. Since 2010 the team grew organically from 2 to over 50, and raised over £200m for more than 600 technology startups and scaleups using solely government funding schemes. GrantTree is also an open culture company which pioneered a self-set salary scheme, and an empoëering culture governed by holacracy.

Paulina is also a seed investor and a startup mentor, who features as a keynote speaker at technology conferences worldwide. She has been interviewed by the BBC, the Financial Times, Vogue, the Guardian, featured on Channel 5, in the Huffington Post, on Virginstartups.com and many more.

COMPANY CULTURE – Workshop Agenda & Topics

• what is company culture?! possible ways of exploring this topic
• how to determine your purpose and values
• how to recruit for culture fit and for “future culture fit”, how we did the latter at GrantTree (introducing subject-object interview framework designed by Robert Kegan
• importance of making a stand in terms of what matters to you as a founder and finding an operational/governance structure that reflects your beliefs
• how to find leader role models and to what extend to follow their path (as opposed to designing your own!)
• examples of possible organisational structures: holacracy, teal organisations (as per model of Frederic Laloux), self-managing teams – all from personal experience
• ways of tuning into your ambitions for the business as a founder – both in terms of “moonshot goal” as well social impact and financial rewards
• how to find funding source and model that reflects your values and is aligned with what kind of company you ëant to run

Benefits of taking a Mentoring Session with Paulina Tenner/possible Outcomes

• down to Earth, practical advice on raising finance (stemming from experience as angel investor and founder of a medium sized grants consultancy in London)
• commercial and strategic input (I’ve been known as “saleswoman from hell” ? in the second company I started (GrantTree) and personally brought in over £1m worth of revenue
• advice on brand positioning, channels to market and pricing (I’m just in the process of creating companies three and four so this is precisely what keeps me busy a lot of the time!)
• sharing my experience when it comes to building wholesome working cultures (at GrantTree people used to set their own salaries and all financials were transparent)
• advice on alternative company governance and operational structures (such as holacracy which GrantTree used at the point I was at the helm)
• advice on building and recruiting for self-managing, agile teams
• coaching around stepping into your true power as a founder and creating substantial impact on your industry as well as how to navigate different parts of our lives (not just business!) to
• make them work together well and be a happy, wholesome human
• opportunity to get a copy of my book “Laid Bare” and find out more about synergies between business and burlesque ?