Fidens (adj.) Latin - fearless, bold, courageous, resolute
Are you fidens?
Over Stafford’s 20 year career, one thing has stood out to her above anything else: the leaders who knew where they were going and why were able to tackle new challenges far better than those who weren’t. Having a solid foundation makes you fearless. It makes the answer clear when everyone is clamoring for your attention.
Having led a variety of large and small companies and teams, Stafford launched Fidens Strategy in 2023 for the fearless leaders who want to clarify, identify and codify their purpose, their vision, their values and their operations. These leaders are tired of feeling yanked around by the latest political or economic issue. They are ready to grow, fearlessly. They are fidens.
Founder
Stafford Palmieri Sievert, Managing Partner
Stafford loves building companies. Her brain thinks in systems, incentives and structures, marrying the psychological and logistical parts of creating and scaling great companies. In addition to being Managing Partner of Fidens, Stafford is also a General Partner at Foundations, a venture capital firm investing in American startups increasing productivity in the architecture, engineering and construction industry. She is also an Outside Board Director of Thomas & Hutton, an engineering firm serving the Southeast United States, and sits on the Utah Cosmetology and Associated Professions Licensing Board and the board of the Yale Club of Utah.
Prior to her current endeavors, Stafford was the CEO of Fabius Labs, a product strategy, design and software engineering agency that helped dozens of clients bring web and mobile applications to market. Prior to that she was the President of Palmieri Partners, a go-to-market consulting agency that used a product lens to help services businesses focus on the customer. She launched Palmieri Partners after spending almost three years at AECOM, a Fortune 500 publicly traded architecture, engineering and construction company where she designed and built the business development operations function in the wake of AECOM’s acquisition of URS. In that role, she supported M&A integration, built and implemented sales training for 10,000 capture managers, and led the development of a sales goal software application.
She started her career in public policy, first as an education policy analyst for the Thomas B. Fordham Institute in Washington, DC, and then spending nearly six years in the administration of Governor Bobby Jindal of Louisiana. Over that time, she had multiple roles, including Policy Director, Assistant Chief of Staff and Deputy Chief of Staff. Ultimately, Governor Jindal appointed her as Commissioner of Administration, the cabinet secretary that runs the back office agency of the state, including payroll, risk management, IT, state lands, capital outlay and the state’s $25 billion (at the time) budget. She was named to Forbes Magazine 30 Under 30 as the youngest commissioner ever to serve.
Stafford holds a BA from Yale University and an MBA from the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania.