More About Margit
Margit Wennmachers is the head of marketing at a16z. She joined the firm in 2010, after representing and launching Andreessen Horowitz in 2008. Best known for her ability to create market-leading brands, Margit is a16z’s chief marketer, advising the firm and its entrepreneurs on their marketing and communications strategies.
An entrepreneur herself, in 1997, Margit cofounded the leading marketing and communications firm, The OutCast Agency, who today partners with leaders and disruptors like Airbnb, Amazon, Box, Facebook, HBO, Instagram, Intuit, Lyft, Nike, and more.
Margit has been in technology marketing for over 25 years and is a mentor to many leaders in the technology and marketing industries. She has advised countless founders and CEOs, consulted on hundreds of company and product launches, as well as scrubbed in on more crises than she’d care to reveal.
She spent her childhood in a small village in West Germany before emigrating to the United States. She speaks English, German, Spanish, and French. She serves on the board of the German Marshall Fund, a non-partisan policy organization committed to the idea that the United States and Europe are stronger together. Margit loves being a mom, eating delicious food, and traveling all over creation.
Latest Content
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In this hallway-style conversation with a16z's Margit Wennmachers, longtime operating partner for Marketing, and Kim Milosevich, CMO for a16z crypto, open up the black box of crisis communications with Sonal Choksi and explore the process and mindsets before, during, and after a crisis. They discuss common FAQs like: What constitutes a crisis? Can someone inside a company "call it" early and prevent a crisis from becoming a bigger deal? How do you respond when there's a lag or too much time between acknowledging the issue and finding out all the facts? Who should be in the (war) room ? Should you share the off-the-record background story with reporters? How do you know when a crisis begins and ends -- or that you're ready for a "comeback" story? We explore all this and more.
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In this 10-year anniversary episode of the a16z Podcast, a16z operating partner Margit Wennmachers shares the case study of her work at The Outcast Agency (which she co-founded) and of building the a16z brand, where she heads marketing -- answering some FAQs about how things work, and even revealing some details behind the scenes of popular op-eds and stories about a16z.
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This episode of the a16z Podcast provides perspectives from both sides of the table (in-house vs. agency, big company vs. startup) for what it takes, featuring PR legends and veterans Shannon (Stubo) Brayton, chief marketing officer at LinkedIn (formerly at OpenTable and formerly vice president of corporate communications at eBay) and Margit Wennmachers, operating partner at Andreessen Horowitz who heads up the marketing function (and who co-founded and later sold The Outcast Agency), in conversation with Sonal Chokshi. It’s not dictation — whether from company to agency, or agency to reporter, or PR to internal stakeholders — there’s a lot of strategic thinking involved even with seemingly incidental things. And… it’s a leap of faith.
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Andreessen Horowitz operating partner Margit Wennmachers shares the founding story of OutCast, the PR agency she co-founded (acquired in 2005); her history as one of its first operating partners at a16z (and what makes i...
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A board veteran who has sat on both sides of the table, CEO of PagerDuty Jennifer Tejada shares what you gain from board membership (vs. being only an operator). How does being a board member change you as a CEO, and vic...
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A crisis is an opportunity to change one's culture, to model scenarios and set up a crisis plan/process, to become a better company. But it's also a bit like therapy, from the act of asking probing questions to get at th...
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In this episode of the a16z Podcast, Wennmachers and Outcast CEO Alex Constantinople -- both longtime veterans of public relations and building executive profiles -- de-mystify what having and building a personal brand takes. It's not only about "thought leadership", either... a personal brand can also provide a filter for choosing what to do (and what not to do), as well as define your aspirations for where you want to go next. Even if you cringe at the idea of putting yourself in the spotlight.
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"Punch above your weight" -- If there's one thing public relations (PR) should help startups and founders do, it's that. Unfortunately, some companies are actually punching below their weight when there's a strong compan...
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This is a guest post by Margit Wennmachers, partner at Andreessen Horowitz.