Dana Griffin
Co-Founder / CEO, Eldera.ai
📍San Francisco, USA
What qualities do you think leaders need to have in today’s world?
The leaders who will matter most in the years ahead are those who lead with humanity first; who see people before problems and relationships before metrics. Empathy is the foundation: you cannot build for human connection without genuinely understanding human pain. Creativity is essential because the hardest problems are new (loneliness, youth mental health, aging in isolation) have no off-the-shelf solutions; you have to imagine infrastructure that has never existed. And resilience is what carries you through, because building something that truly matters is slow, nonlinear, and often lonely work. These four qualities will make up the core operating system for anyone trying to build something that supports humanity, scales and lasts.
If you had to describe your leadership style in one word, what would it be and why?
Relational. Everything I build – and how I build it – starts with relationships. Our product is relationship. Our mission is relationship. And so is the leadership. I believe you cannot inspire a team, earn trust from a community, or change a broken system without first understanding and building with in the human beings in front of you. One adult, one young person, one hour a week changes two lives, and I run Eldera the same way: one conversation, one connection, one trusted relationship at a time.
How does your company’s Pledge 1% program help shape the kind of workplace culture you believe in?
I joined Pledge 1% because it’s an expression of a commitment already built into our DNA. Eldera is structured for perpetual stewardship: we return the social and economic value we create back to the humans who made it possible. Our golden share ensures that as Eldera grows, the communities we serve always have a seat at the table. Pledging 1% is an additional concrete, visible form of that promise, a signal to our team, our investors, and our community that we are not building to extract. We are building to give back and create opportunities for all involved.
This year marks the 7th year of Pledge 1%’s #WomenWhoLead campaign. How can companies champion and support female leadership?
We need to stop celebrating female leadership like it is something extraordinary, because the data shows it isn’t. Female leaders drive higher ROI, stronger retention, and more sustainable companies. Female leadership is a smart business imperative, not a feel-good story about exceptionalism. If we want all boats to rise, we need to create real pipelines, build genuine mentorship infrastructure, and start funding it. The goal isn’t to celebrate female leadership once a year, but to make it the norm.
If you could write a note to your younger self on her first day of work, what would it say?
Make friends, real friends. The relationships you build on day one will matter more than anything on your resume and will be your champions 20 years into your career. Learn from every opportunity, especially the ones that don’t look like opportunities yet. The unglamorous work, the difficult conversations, the roles that feel too small, they are all teaching you something about the world or yourself.
Think bigger than anyone tells you is reasonable, because the problems worth solving are never small ones. And have fun. I found the more fun I have, the more creative and inspired I feel, and the more opportunities I uncover… or create.
