[EO San Francisco] Navigating Crisis, Pivoting Business Models, and Building Resilience With Anna Rembold

Anna Rembold is the Founder and CEO of Metavent, a company that specializes in comprehensive corporate event operations and strategy, helping clients execute everything from intimate gatherings to large-scale events for up to 5,000 attendees. Under Anna's leadership, Metavent experienced rapid growth, reaching $4 million in annual revenue and earning a place as #403 on the Inc. 5000 list in 2019.

In this episode…

When everything you've built suddenly disappears, what keeps you moving forward? For founders and leaders, a crisis isn't just a strategic test — it exposes habits, assumptions, and the inner resilience that reveals itself when survival becomes the only goal.

According to Anna Rembold, a seasoned entrepreneur shaped by both rapid growth and abrupt loss, the answer is grounded realism paired with adaptability. She believes that surviving a crisis starts with staying calm, taking decisive action, and being willing to let go of rigid plans in favor of what the moment demands. Her experience navigating a near-total revenue collapse during the pandemic reinforced that resilience isn't about avoiding hardship, but about building systems, support, and perspective that allow you to endure it and emerge stronger.

In this episode, John Corcoran is joined by Anna Rembold, Founder and CEO of Metavent, to discuss navigating crises and pivoting business models during extreme uncertainty. They explore how the events industry was forced to reinvent itself during the pandemic, the realities of shifting from services to software, and the mental toll of prolonged instability. Anna also shares advice on protecting mental health, leaning on community, and rebuilding stronger after disruption.