Rachel Romer remembers lying on the ground on a warm August evening last year, watching as darkness descended around her. She had been sitting on her outdoor patio in Denver, where she liked to unwind from long days as the CEO of Guild, the $4.4 billion education and upskilling startup she cofounded. Suddenly, she fell. She could barely move her right arm or leg, and night was closing in.
Romer, heading up one of the world’s most valuable female-founded startups and a mother of two, had suffered a stroke at 34 years old.
