The Business She Refused to Inherit

The Business She Refused to Inherit

Growing up in a family of contradictions, Maria Colacurcio learned early to question assumed truths, create structure where there was none, and wield the quiet power of Sunday dinners — lessons that now shape how she leads and builds at Syndio.

Thanks to countless movies and TV shows, it doesn’t take much to picture strong, commanding Italian women in the kitchen—preparing multi-course meals with love, precision, and authority. For Maria Colacurcio, these weren’t just Hollywood depictions; they were her reality. The women in her family hosted Sunday dinners for nearly fifty people: cousins, uncles, aunts—anyone who showed up. The men stayed out of the way, with deep respect (and perhaps a little fear) for the magic the matriarchs were cooking up.

Yet the power those women held seemed confined to a single room—the kitchen. After the meal, they would clear the plates while the men played pinochle and talked business. And in Maria’s family, “business” meant their network of men’s nightclubs—an empire her uncle had built where women were the entertainment.

Those memories are some of Maria’s earliest lessons in contradiction: at home, women were revered; in business, they were diminished. She didn’t have words for it yet, but she understood the imbalance instinctively. Even as a young girl, she resolved to nurture the first truth—and challenge the second.

A Family Of Contradictions

After immigrating from Italy, Maria’s grandfather started a produce trucking business in Seattle, hauling goods every day to Pike Place Market. Her father, the youngest of nine, did whatever work was needed—odd jobs, maintenance, whatever kept the business running. He was proud to provide for his family, but uneasy about the business itself. 

Over time, led by Maria’s oldest uncle, the family business underwent a radical shift—first selling pinball and jukebox machines to clubs and restaurants, and then, seeing the success of the establishments they were selling to, built their own. What initially started as a club with waitresses on roller skates became a nightclub for men, and eventually a massive network of clubs where women were the main attraction. Maria’s father continued to work in the family business throughout this time. While the clubs paid the bills, they also exposed the gaps between the values he preached and the world he worked in.

At home, her father insisted his children receive a strong education, sending them to private Christian schools even when it meant financial strain. Along with academics, her parents valued faith and hard work. They lived modestly, driving cars into the ground, and stayed in the same small house throughout their childhood. And every Sunday, it would always begin with church and conclude with a family meal.

Maria knew enough about the family business to realize the dichotomy of her life, sharing, “The family business was controversial, yet at home we were deeply family oriented, with high expectations for morals, values, and education—just holding two very dichotomous concepts at once gave me this perspective of being open to questioning what’s in front of me.”

Constraint Brings Clarity

At 16, she stumbled upon a job at a children’s talent agency through a family she babysat for, whose owner ran the talent firm. Her job was to call all the families of the would-be stars and tell them their child didn’t get the part. Maria remembers the first time she broke the bad news to a hopeful stage-mom, “I’m so sorry, but we were looking for a redhead with slightly redder hair,” she recalls relaying to the mother.  

Maria went home in tears that first day. She had no script, no guidance on how to let the parents know their hopeful star hadn’t received the call back—she just had a long list of names with a “no” next to them. She was met with comfort from her parents, but also a clear direction—you signed up for this job, so as hard as it may be, you will have to make it work. It was her first lesson that constraint can be the spark for creativity, and that resourcefulness often matters more than experience.

Maria carried that early work ethic to college, earning scholarships for music at a small Presbyterian liberal arts school. However, by her third year, she pivoted to a different major. As a result, she lost her scholarships and had to pay her own way through school, taking on various jobs to cover tuition and expenses. After earning her degree, she moved to Washington, D.C., where she held two jobs to repay her student loans. Each constraint forced her to be resourceful and creative—not to avoid hard problems, but to find new ways through them.

The Lure of Tech

A chance interview with a Silicon Valley startup introduced her to technology, and she immediately fell in love with it. Her CEO had a strong work ethic and taught her that the most important rule of startup tech was never to leave the office before the boss. This motivated Maria to commit, that is, until her boss parked his high-end Airstream in front of the office—meaning he didn’t go home until he was going to bed. Despite the intensity, she admired this CEO and remained with the company until the dot-com bubble burst, as one of only four employees left to turn off the lights.

Following her first startup experience, she moved back home to Seattle to take on a marketing role at Onyx before landing a job at Microsoft. To Maria’s dad, earning a job at a prestigious company like Microsoft was a significant achievement; he was incredibly proud of his daughter for reaching this level of success, security, and stability. And so when a year later Maria told her father she was leaving to co-found her own startup, he wore his disappointment on his face, questioning her decision to leave the well-respected company to start “God knows what in a garage with two other people.”

She left Microsoft with a vision, a lot of sketches on butcher paper, and a feeling in her gut. Along with her three co-founders, she founded Smartsheet, a digital work collaboration platform that has become a significant success story, including a successful IPO. During that time, Maria married one of her co-founders and, after returning to work following the birth of her twins, decided to leave the workforce to raise her five children—a decision she describes with gratitude, but one that constricted her ability to remain part of the company she co-founded. 

Building Syndio

After dedicating years as a full-time mom and following a divorce, Maria set out to reenter the workforce. She felt confident: she was a successful co-founder and leader with a strong resume, but all anyone in technology wanted to know was what she had been doing for the last six years. While caring for her family was admired, it didn’t hold enough value to counter the fact that she had been out of the game for so long—the contradiction reinvigorated the feeling she had in her youth.

Maria eventually re-entered the corporate world at Starbucks headquarters, a company she long admired. As one of the first companies to progressively disclose pay parity, Maria finally saw data to illustrate the contradictions she observed throughout her life. She was curious about how companies determined pay equity and was shocked at the archaic approach: backward-looking, episodic, once-a-year analysis. She believed there was an opportunity to drive insights and systemically embed data to help companies make better forward-looking pay decisions. 

The familiar pull to build something was back again, and she found a new place to grow as CEO of Syndio, a newly founded startup. At Syndio, Maria and her team are building AI-driven decision intelligence for pay, helping global organizations make faster, smarter pay decisions, reduce overspending, and stay compliant. 

For Maria, contradiction taught her to question assumptions and search for better systems, constraint taught her to find a way forward, and Sunday dinners taught her the power of family. Today, Sunday dinners are still non-negotiable but have evolved from those of her youth. Each week, she prepares meatballs from scratch, and with seven children, she jokes, she always has the critical mass both at the table and in the kitchen to get the job done.