Fran Maier

Fran Maier was born as Fran Allocca and grew up in Santa Fe, New Mexico, graduating from Santa Fe High in 1980. She then graduated with a degree in public policy from Stanford University,[1] where she also earned her MBA in 1989.[2] Early in her career, she worked in marketing for companies including Clorox and AAA.[3]

In 1995, Maier co-founded Match.com, where she was also their founding marketing director and soon became the company's first general manager while it was still known as Electric Classifieds.[4] Early in her tenure, she described her work as evangelizing online dating as a whole industry rather than just the company, in order to develop a market for dating sites.[5][6] Following the sale of Match.com in 1998, Maier then worked with several other start-ups,[7] including Women.com[8] and Bluelight.com.[9]

In 2001, she joined as executive director of Truste, a nonprofit Internet privacy organization.[10][11][12] During her work with the company, now named TrustARC, Maier transitioned the company from a non-profit industry association to a venture-backed company, raising its first round of capital from Accel Partner.[13] Following her tenure, Maier became a mentor to new start-ups in Silicon Valley, starting in 2013 after providing a keynote speech before that year's Women 2.0 conference. Through her advisory business, she has focused on primarily female company founders in the technology industry.[14]

In 2016, Maier became the co-founder[15] and CEO of BabyQuip (originally Babierge), which rents baby and toddler gear through a peer-to-peer online network.[1] One of the focuses of the company is matching parents to baby equipment while travelling.[16]

Fran Maier is a mother of two.[3]