Tala Akhavan is the Chief Operating Officer at Pietra, a venture-backed technology and e-commerce company empowering brands to build and scale their direct-to-consumer businesses. Since joining in 2021, she has built and managed the company's operations, go-to-market, and expansion, leading the company through two fundraises and growing into a leading platform backed by Andreessen Horowitz and Founders Fund, among others.

Before Pietra, Tala spent five years at Uber in a range of leadership roles. Most notably, she served as Chief of Staff to the VP of Customer Engagement and Platform, a C-suite executive reporting directly to the CEO, where she drove strategy, org design, planning, and cross-functional alignment across Uber’s consumer-facing businesses. She also ran North America Operations for Uber’s economy rideshare products, including UberPool, UberX, and UberXL among others. Tala began her career in management consulting at Oliver Wyman, advising top financial institutions on consumer product and growth strategy in retail banking.

She holds a B.A. from Columbia University in Mathematics, Sustainable Development, and Business Management. She serves on Columbia’s Young Leaders Council, Alumni Legacy Circle, and previously served 10 years on the Columbia College Young Alumni Board. She is also the co-founder of WonderWalls, a national nonprofit supporting hospitalized youth, and actively fundraises for Children’s Hospital Los Angeles and Baby2Baby.

Tala lives in Santa Monica with her husband and their two young children (ages 2 and 5). She’s passionate about building businesses that support multidimensional lives, especially for parents, and believes deeply in making it possible to be all-in on both career and family.