Britt Riley, Founder & CEO
Haven
What if the answer to the childcare crisis wasn’t a policy fix — it was a building with a community membership?
There’s a moment most working parents know: the one where you’re on a conference call and life loudly, undeniably rushes right in. For Britt Riley, that moment happened in front of 75 colleagues. It also became the seed of something bigger.
Britt is the founder and CEO of Haven — an integrated childcare, coworking, and wellness space built for the reality of modern family life. The concept is elegantly simple: childcare on the first floor, workspace on the second, parents close enough to feel connected and far enough to actually focus. But building it was anything but simple.
In this conversation, Britt shares the full arc from marketing career to opening her first Haven location in 2019, to surviving a pandemic six months later, and to launching a national franchise model built on culture-first values she traces all the way back to an internship at Patagonia.
She talks about why childcare workers deserve to be paid like the specialists they are, what it means to grow a business without losing its soul, and what happened on a Friday when she took her daughters (the ones who inspired the whole thing) back to a Haven club for the first time in three years.
Whether you’re a working parent, an aspiring founder, or someone who believes we can build better systems for families, take a listen to this episode.
In this episode:
✦ Why Haven exists — and what problem it actually solves
✦ The structured separation philosophy that makes it work
✦ How Britt built Haven as a nighttime hobby while still employed
✦ Why COVID was Haven’s unlikely “first investor”
✦ The franchise model that puts community ownership at the center
✦ A heartwarming, full-circle moment with her daughters
MBTI vibe: ESFJ / ISFJ / ENFJ / ENTJ / INTJ / ENTP / ESTJ
Mission clarity • People orientation • Long-term thinking • Values consistency • Relationship investment • Responsibility ownership
Need to Know Facts*
Salary Range:
Entry-Level Education &
Additional Certification
Work Experience in Related
Occupation:
Type of organizations to
work for:
Job Outlook:
Resources:
Avg annual pay: $56,270
Bachelor’s Degree –
Early childhood education
State License
Early childhood educ exp
Classroom teaching
Child daycare services
Religious, civic, similar orgs
Self-employed business
-3% through 2034
Driven by low birth rates,
rising costs of daycare
* Bureau of Labor Statistics
What She Does Podcast 
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