A Conversation with Arielle Pennington, SVP of Growth at Ava Labs
Arielle Pennington explores the critical role of regional leadership, the synergy between grassroots and institutional growth, and the future of the Avalanche global roadmap.
Arielle joined Avalanche as SVP of Growth on September 17, 2025. Her arrival came at a pivotal moment, as institutions, enterprises, and forward-thinking organizations began to rethink how they engage with blockchain.
Since stepping into the role, she has worked on aligning Avalanche’s growth strategy with a broader global vision, helping shape partnerships, real-world use cases, and long-term initiatives that connect technology with meaningful impact.
In this conversation, Arielle shares how Avalanche thinks about growth today, how that vision has evolved, and what she sees ahead as Web3 continues to expand across finance, infrastructure, and new digital economies.
Q1. Since joining Avalanche, what has stood out to you the most about growth, especially as more institutions and large organizations explore blockchain? Was there anything that surprised you?
What stood out most is how far along institutions actually are compared to the public perception. Many are not asking if blockchain fits into their strategy. They are asking how to deploy it responsibly at scale.
What surprised me was how pragmatic those conversations are. Institutions care deeply about reliability, compliance, uptime, and long-term viability. Avalanche has quietly been solving those problems for years, which puts us in a very strong position as the market matures and expectations become more serious.
Q2. When you talk about growth at Avalanche, what does it mean beyond metrics? And how do partnerships with enterprises and builders help shape that direction?
Metrics absolutely matter. They are how we measure progress and hold ourselves accountable. At the same time, the strongest growth signals often appear before the numbers do.
For Avalanche, growth means being trusted to run real systems. That includes transactions that matter, businesses that operate at scale, and infrastructure that cannot afford downtime. Our enterprise and builder partnerships shape that direction because they bring real constraints into the conversation, from regulatory requirements to operational scale and user expectations. When partners are building real products on Avalanche, the metrics follow naturally.
Q3. Avalanche has often been positioned as a network that can support almost any use case. While that flexibility is a strength, it has also made it harder for Avalanche to be known for one clear thing. Why is defining a focused narrative important, and how do you think about shaping a message that people can easily understand and rally around?
Avalanche has always been a blockchain for business. Institutions and enterprises already build and transact on Avalanche every day. The challenge has never been capability. It has been clarity.
A focused narrative helps people quickly understand what Avalanche is known for. When the message is clear that Avalanche is the blockchain serious organizations rely on, it becomes easier for partners, builders, and the broader market to rally around it. Focus does not limit us. It sharpens how the world understands what we have been doing all along.
Q4. Once a core narrative begins to resonate, new ideas, use cases, and communities tend to emerge alongside it. How do you think about maintaining emphasis on that central story while still giving space for organic growth across the ecosystem?
A strong narrative scales when it is carried by people, not just platforms. Brand evangelists matter deeply here. Founders, builders, partners, and community leaders who believe in the story and tell it through their work are what keep the message alive and consistent.
Our role is to arm the ecosystem with the tools to grow. That includes clear messaging, strong proof points, and real pathways to business opportunities. When people understand the story and are equipped to win customers and partnerships, they amplify it naturally while building in their own way.
Q5. Avalanche has made meaningful progress with institutional and enterprise partners while also supporting independent builders and community-driven projects. How do you think about balancing those efforts so that growth at an institutional level does not disconnect from the grassroots level?
Institutional and grassroots growth are not opposites. They reinforce each other. Institutions need vibrant ecosystems to build on, and builders benefit from infrastructure that is stable, trusted, and widely adopted.
Our role is to make sure the rails are strong and accessible. When the underlying infrastructure is reliable, both enterprise teams and independent builders can focus on innovation rather than survival.
Q6. In your previous roles, you worked alongside community-led groups that actively supported builders, onboarded new participants, and drove regional growth. What did those experiences teach you about how entities like Team1 can support adoption and ecosystem growth?
They taught me that the most effective ecosystem growth happens close to the ground. Local leaders understand their markets, their developers, and their constraints far better than a centralized team ever could.
Groups like Team1 succeed when they act as enablers, connecting builders to resources, surfacing real opportunities, and translating global strategy into local action.
Q7. Avalanche’s ecosystem spans many regions, each with its own cultural and economic context. How important is regional leadership and local understanding when thinking about global growth?
It is critical. Blockchain adoption does not happen in a vacuum. It reflects local regulation, infrastructure, culture, and economic needs.
Strong regional leadership allows Avalanche to be globally consistent while locally relevant. That balance is what turns a global network into something people actually trust and use.
Q8. Looking ahead, what should people watching Avalanche’s global roadmap be most excited about? And where can they follow along or learn more?
There is a lot to be excited about as we look ahead:
We are locking in a clear narrative and strategic focus.
Avalanche continues to be the blockchain institutions and enterprises actually build and transact on.
We are putting real emotion and conviction back into our brand.
Massive partnerships with some of the biggest brands in the world are coming to the network.
Our 2026 Summit is approaching, with details to be released very soon.
People can follow along through Avalanche’s official channels, partner announcements, and ecosystem launches as we continue to build toward long-term, real-world adoption.
Who Is Arielle?
Arielle Pennington is the Senior Vice President of Growth at Ava Labs, where she leads global growth strategy for Avalanche with a focus on institutional adoption, enterprise partnerships, and long-term ecosystem development.
Prior to joining Ava Labs, Arielle spent several years at the Solana Foundation as Head of Communications, where she played a central role in shaping Solana’s narrative during a period of rapid ecosystem growth. She worked closely with founders, developers, and partners across the world to build global communications programs, support major product and network milestones, and help position Solana as a leading platform for high-performance blockchain applications.
Earlier in her career, Arielle led global communications at 21.co, the parent company of 21Shares, the world’s largest crypto ETP issuer, where she worked at the intersection of digital assets and traditional finance. She also spent nearly eight years at Betterment, holding multiple senior communications roles and helping scale the company through key phases of growth.
Across her career, Arielle has been known for building high-performing teams, crafting clear and durable narratives, and bridging complex technology with real-world business adoption. Her work has focused on helping emerging technologies move from early experimentation into trusted, global infrastructure.
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The first sentence is crazy - "What stood out most is how far along institutions actually are compared to the public perception. Many are not asking if blockchain fits into their strategy. They are asking how to deploy it responsibly at scale."
🔺