Allison Messner: Yardzen Co-Founder and CEO

In 2017, the outdoor space surrounding Allison Messner’s home in Northern California was destroyed by a devastating wildfire. In the aftermath, Allison and her husband decided to hire a landscape designer to help them rebuild their green space, but they quickly realized how difficult, long, and expensive the process was going to be. The two began developing an idea to make the process more efficient and accessible by incorporating new technology, and in 2018, they launched Yardzen, a digital landscape design and build platform. Today, the company operates in all 50 states with a network of hundreds of designers and architects. But before Allison disrupted the landscape industry, she reported as a journalist in Alaska, worked at a prestigious PR firm, was CMO of the tech company OpenDNS when it was acquired by Cisco for $635 million, and even started her own venture capital firm.