Embracing Pretaa’s Pivot to Change Lives

Life can throw all kinds of curveballs in your way, and while it might be frustrating to feel like events are throwing you down a track you didn’t choose, it could just be the path to something incredible and character-defining.

For Eliza Foltz, skating and ice hockey were a great passion, and despite personal injuries cutting her off from pursuing those passions as a career, the characteristics she possessed stayed with her, and ultimately powered her into her current role as Chief Growth Officer at Pretaa, a dynamic tech start-up in the US, which aims to aid addiction and SUD treatment through wearable technology.

 

A New Path

Growing up, Eliza was attracted to team sports such as ice hockey, and thrived as part of a team out on the ice. Unfortunately, due to injuries sustained in a game, followed by further injuries in work, ultimately led to her suffering from addiction to forms of medication including opioids.

Fortunately, Eliza made a full recovery, and has been sober for four years.

While her life path wasn’t what she would have chosen for herself, it gave her many experiences that have propelled her forward in her personal life and career, especially in the field of wearable technology and running effective sales teams.

Eliza values diversity in thought as CGO at Pretaa, and looks for people who are coachable, while appreciating the need to find the right talent to aid Pretaa, whichever part of its lifecycle it may be at.

 

Pivoting to Pretaa

Eliza can see how late-stage businesses have established processes and something of a script to work to. In her experience, working at a start-up such as Pretaa requires pivoting and showing that willingness to put in the hours to work things out for the first time in some cases; whether that’s drafting work documents or slide decks, or simply taking feedback and implementing it properly.

To thrive at Pretaa, Eliza believes candidates need to demonstrate emotional intelligence, alongside adaptability, resilience and mission orientation.

Eliza’s journey at Pretaa began while she was seven months pregnant, without her initially expecting to work for them, when she struck up a conversation with Michael, the CEO.

However, with hindsight, her characteristics and relevant experiences were both factors which made her current role as CGO a logical match. While her personal story might have made some employers view hiring her as a calculated risk, Pretaa saw in her a woman who understood their mission, who could help join and grow their team in the future.

 

Pretaa’s Own Pivot

Pretaa’s own life as a company stems from a major pivot it underwent the month before Eliza joined. A chance encounter with a mental health advocate helped convince the CEO to pivot Pretaa from a tool aiming to detect anomalies in sales processes into a tool which could actively help aid people in addiction and SUD treatment.

For too many struggling with addiction, care often results in patients relapsing, and care is reacting to the problem rather than being able to tackle the problem before it emerges.

Rather than continuing under a reactive model of treatment, the likes of Pretaa are finding innovative ways to allow for preventative action, and the business is scaling up to better-suit the demands of clients as it finetunes its solution.

This requires Eliza, as CGO, to examine candidates, to see who has the right characteristics and experience to help aid Pretaa in shaking up healthcare outcomes for those seeking to recover from addiction properly.

Want to hear more about James and Eliza’s discussion?

Watch the full episode of Tech Salescraft on YouTube, or across all major podcast streaming platforms.