Jenny Bavinger

Ellie Javadi is the CMO of Sapphire Ventures where she is responsible for overseeing firmwide marketing and communications initiatives.

Prior to Sapphire, she was the Head of Marketing and Vice President at Norwest Venture Partners (NVP) for seven years. While there, she oversaw the firm’s brand and marketing evolution with a focus on digital, social, and content initiatives.

Prior to Norwest, she spent a decade at Stanford Research Institute (SRI) where she led the communications function and was responsible for marketing, social media, content, and earned media initiatives for SRI and its spin-off companies (including launch and acquisition support for Siri, which was acquired by Apple). Earlier, Ellie was head of communications at Agile Software and Ariba (now SAP Ariba).

Over the course of her career, Ellie has provided strategic communications, branding and marketing counsel to hundreds of startups with a specific emphasis on launch and growth strategy.

She has served three terms as President of the Board of the Public Relations Society of America (Silicon Valley) and is President of the Board at the Pacific Art League (PAL) in Palo Alto.

Ellie earned her graduate and undergraduate degrees from Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, PA. She is active in CMU alumni affairs and hosts alumni events and dinners in Silicon Valley. She is an active marketing and brand advisor to the CMU Tech & Entrepreneurship group supporting founders and CEOs on their journey.

She lives with her family in northern California, along with a middle-aged Frenchie. Her hobbies include painting, art collecting and connecting emerging artists with collectors.