Cosmin Nicolaescu

My Greatest Accomplishment

Being part of not one, but two incredibly high-growth startups, scaling the company from 50–100 people all the way to 1,500. I’ve loved joining both Stripe and Brex when they each felt like the Wild West; over the years, I’ve enjoyed creating structure and seeing growth challenges through at each step as the companies evolve. I’ve found the blend of individual, team, culture and technical complexities particularly rewarding and feel immensely fortunate to have had that experience over the last 10 years.

How Drexel Helped Me

Drexel opened up so many opportunities for me: It helped me move to the United States from Romania to study, helped me get my first real job working as a systems administrator for the Department of Computer Science (hat tip Gaylord Holder), and enabled me to intern at Microsoft, which led to my first full-time job after graduation. In other words, it was foundational in helping me get my career off the ground.

Where I Hope to Be in Five Years

I’ve always enjoyed early-stage ventures and getting things off the ground, so I’ll hopefully either be building my own business or helping another (hopefully at least equally successful) business scale from the ground up.

How I Pay It Forward

I actively coach, mentor and advise other early-stage founders, executives and leaders across the industry. I work with venture capitalists to help companies in their portfolio and I’ve done tens of angel investments to help companies get off the ground. One day, I hope to return to academics by teaching some university classes.