Browse experts
Jacob H.
🏠 Buying a home
My name is Jacob Hogge (pronounced like “rogue” with an “H”) and I’m excited to chat with you!
I currently manage a team of 6 engineers (and a fluctuating number of interns) at SpaceX. Together, we’re responsible for the quality of thousands of components on the Falcon and Dragon spacecraft. Helping my team solve difficult technical challenges, and pushing them to grow personally and professionally is what makes me excited to go to work every day.
Outside of my career I enjoy backpacking, skiing, triathlon, and beach volleyball. I’m also passionate about Australian Shepherds, hot lattes, and key-lime pie; I try my best to indulge in these at every opportunity.
I’m a strong believer in continuous improvement, and I learned from an early age that mentorship is an excellent catalyst for growth. A great mentor can help you build the confidence and skills to reach your goals, while allowing you to learn from their mistakes and missteps. With that said, there’s no right way to live life; I don’t claim to have all the answers. Sometimes just having somebody to bounce ideas off of is all you need to move forward. I look forward to learning and growing together!
Manoela R.
😎 Consulting
I came from a small city in Brazil where people tend to stay forever (high school, college, first job, second, third, build a family, grow old), and I decided to challenge that - got out of my parents house when I was 16 and haven't come back since. I went to study engineering, joined an NGO, went abroad a couple of times, volunteered, got to McKinsey and now to HBS.
Since then, I've been trying to share a bit more of my accomplishments to see if I could help inspire others to also get out of their comfort zones - and I believe I've been successful so far, as people keep reaching out to me for career advice and mentoring in general.
Anthony V.
🙌 Nonprofit
I've mentored professionals since I was a full-time employee at Cisco. I've always enjoyed teaching other, and I come from an underprivileged upbringing, so I feel like I have a lot to give. Twenty excites me because it is an opportunity to help up and coming professionals. I feel like my experience is very expansive, and I've made a ton of mistakes, so people can learn from what I've done wrong.
Asli K.
💡 Product
I grew up in Turkey, attended high school in Istanbul, then moved to California for Stanford. After studying computer science and architecture, I specialized in product design over the last decade at tech startups like Asana, Twitter, and Autodesk. My professional superpower is bringing clarity and mindfulness to teamwork. Attending silent retreats and practicing meditation allows me to be my best self. I know we’re inter-connected to each other and with the Earth. I bring these mindfulness practices to the teams and individuals I work with. In the wild, you can find me exploring new instruments and singing with friends!
Tommy H.
🎒 Solo travel
My family left Vietnam when I was 4 and I didn’t return to my birthplace for 22 years. So there’s a lot of “straddling the line between being Vietnamese and American, trying to please my parents but also wishing they’d adopt more American values, finding the pride of being Asian-American in a society dominated by White people” stuff that I’ve grappled with throughout my twenties.
Work and career success was really tangled into my identity for a loooong time as well. Like, my self worth was tied to what I could achieve during my time on planet earth. I eventually found the unsubscribe button within the cult of productivity app, and realized my life, work, partner, friends, city, and bank account balance was all enough—stellar actually. Not to say I’ve figured it out; far from it. But I’m working on it every day.
I didn’t navigate and learn everything you’ve read on this page without people giving me a lot of their time and perspectives. So I’m here to listen, learn, ask questions, and hopefully pay it forward to you.
Dartis W.
🎨 Design & art
Hello Twenty-something my name is Dartis Willis II, I’m a Senior Product Manager (and former UX researcher) who just became a new mentor at Twenty. I would love to give you some helpful advice, but first here’s a little bit of information on my background.
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Viren S.
💸 VC & investing
I'm a serial entrepreneur who is building my 4th startup. I dropped out of my undergrad to build my last company. I'm excited to be a mentor on Twenty because I love helping others and I'm super passionate about this space - my first startup was a mentorship platform :)
Jake F.
🔥 MBA
My career path has been challenging, unexpected, and rewarding. I’ve served as a founder, a consultant, an advisor, and a Board of Directors member. I’ve founded both an unsuccessful business venture and a successful non-profit, worked in massive multi-national corporations and early- and growth-stage VC-backed startups. I've been laid off, low-balled, and have had to navigate toxic workplace politics. I chose an untraditional path for post-graduate education, learned what fuels me professionally, and have both slogged away doing menial admin tasks and been in the room with some of the most powerful people in my industry. And I’m still figuring out what I want to do when I "grow up".
A bit about my background, I graduated with a degree in marketing and global management, thinking I would go into the hospitality industry as a brand manager. It turns out I didn't actually like marketing in practice. So, with no educational background in healthcare or technology, I was thrown into the deep end of health tech when I became an implementations consultant working on the front lines in hospitals right next to doctors and nurses. I took everything that came my way as a learning experience and was promoted quickly until I got to an executive level IT strategy consulting role at a large corporation. The career plateau that came next was one of the largest struggles I had to face in my young career, and I think that a lot of people in their early- to mid-twenties may be experiencing this. I decided to pursue my education and, while still working full-time, got a masters degree from Penn School of Medicine in Healthcare Innovation. During this degree program, I moved to a venture-backed startup which doubled in size in my first year there. Dealing with the realities of what this meant not just for the business but for the job I was doing was another massive challenge, and I ended up leaving to start my next adventure. I am currently in the very early stages of building a business, while taking a much-needed break from the working world.
I get a tremendous amount of satisfaction mentoring young people through my university’s post-grad programs, as well as my own family members and other young professionals. I think a big reason for this is that a lot of the “influencers” giving advice are impractical for a professional environment (corporate and startup), and interviews with successful people such as Fortune 500 CEOs rarely give insight into actionable steps for young people to take in their careers. My approach is to be transparent and honest, and lean on my own experience to give examples of how you might want to (or not want to) approach certain topics. I hope to be able to create a space for college students and early career professionals to feel comfortable in uncertainty and in exploring their interests.
I also have a great network who are looking for bright folks to help bring new perspectives, and I’m always happy to make the connection.
Lanita P.
I’m passionate about empowering others and helping them to shine in a way that is authentic to them. I'm also a consumer enthusiast who loves brands that empower communities.
As a former consultant and now Harvard MBA, I am applying my passion for elevating the stories and experiences of overlooked consumers through the products that they use. CPG plays a significant role in consumers' identities and, and my mission is to make consumers feel seen, heard, and confident in who they are and how they show up. \n \n Professionally, I have gained a number of skills from my almost 6 years in consulting including: project management, cross-functional collaboration, executive communication, data analysis, budget management, and human capital management. Through my internships in early-stage VC and at Procter & Gamble I learned investor relations and brand management respectively. As an entrepreneur I've learned strategic branding, partnerships, digital strategy, and scrappiness. \n \n I wouldn’t be where I am today, without countless professionals and friends mentoring me. I am passionate about paying it forward to help provide access to knowledge that will help other break down barriers and eradicate statistics. If you would like to chat about career, life, or business school, schedule a chat and let’s get to work!
Leigh H.
Hey there! I’m Leigh, a recent Harvard Business School MBA grad, pursuing a career focused on the intersection of strategy and social impact. Let me tell you my story.
I graduated from Wellesley College at 22 thinking I had everything figured out. I had a great job in a city that I was excited about. I negotiated a salary that I was proud of and that would allow me to start the life I wanted. I was living with a good friend and had a community of college friends with whom to share the New York City experience. And yet... I felt lost. I started my job, and feeling unchallenged, under-stimulated, and undervalued, I quickly learned that it wasn't for me. I was overwhelmed by the size of the city and didn't know my place in it. I was working long hours and didn't have the time that I wanted and needed to take care of myself. For the first time in my life, I didn’t feel that I was learning, and felt pressure to find new educational channels.
Ultimately, I took a big risk. I left finance and New York City, took a 60% pay cut, and moved to Boston to work in an unconventional consulting role for a professor. It was because of the challenges that I struggled with in New York - allowing me to reflect and grow - that I could make progress in moving toward my passions and goals.
But, uncertainty, unease, and change aren’t parts of life that just go away, or that you simply grow out of. My pivoting career-wise was the progress I needed back in 2019. Now in new season of life as a newly minted MBA, I’m still addressing that familiar “lost” feeling although from a different standpoint. Facing a tough job market, I’m needing to define my goals and success more definitively than ever before. I often feel stuck in the comparison that “everyone else has it figured out,” and staying steadfast in what I care about and what I do and don’t want is more easily said than done. And yet, I’m learning to embrace the stillness and freedom of this reflective moment. I get to decide what progress means to me at age 29, and I’m growing in that process.
Twenty is the resource I needed out of college to help reflect upon and grow from change. It’s a resource that I still need today to help me reflect and learn in moments when the path ahead isn’t clear. I hope to be a mentor to those like my younger self, who could use the wisdom of someone with just a little bit more experience and distance. I also hope to be a mentor to those who find themselves struggling with the question marks that are inherently part of life as a 20-something. (I promise, no one has it all figured out!)
I look forward to connecting & hearing your story.
Becky L.
I’m a mixed race design leader & strategist. I was born in New York City’s Chinatown and spent most of my childhood on the Jersey Shore. I can’t be away from the ocean for too long and jump in to mark moments of transition, no matter the season.
I’ve spent my entire career finding the right intersection of creativity, learning, and supporting my almost-but-not-quite bi-coastal lifestyle.
I love postcards, Little Free Libraries, and my cattle dog mix, Luna.
I've tiptoed around teaching professionally for my whole life, from teaching SAT prep classes in college, to being a volunteer ESL teacher in NYC, to spending a year at a university in Brazil as an English Teaching Assistant. Ultimately, I like being able to form meaningful relationships with my students and have learning go both ways, which usually means small group or 1:1 relationships with other adults or near peers.
I've volunteered with Braven for over a year as a Leadership Coach for their Accelerator program at San Jose State University, leading 8 students through a course that included career coaching and a design thinking capstone challenge. My team won the challenge, but it wasn't about winning ;) Afterward, I became a Professional Mentor, working 1:1 with students to help them find a job.
I’ve also deeply benefitted from mentoring and coaching in my own professional career. It’s helped me get over humps of insecurity, little and big, and lean into opportunities I wouldn’t have dreamed of before.
I try to overindex on supporting students who wouldn't otherwise have mentorship support, whether they're first-generation college students, BIPOC, or don't have a degree.
In my job as a Senior Director at IDEO, I regularly mentor and guide more junior designers and design teams on client work, and more informally through ERGs and programs like Color by Design, an apprenticeship for BIPOC Design Researchers.
Emily G.
Professionally, I began my career as an educator after I got my Masters. I really loved the idea of my students finding their own voice and driving their own learning. I tried to use technology as a way to allow students to dive into what they loved to learn about in the way they loved to learn it.
I moved from New York to San Francisco in 2015 and joined a company called AltSchool in its early stages. They were personalizing learning for students using innovative technology and I learned first hand what being involved in a startup meant. I felt like I was at “Startup University”- I learned about office culture, work relationships, being part of a team, how to make a slide deck, and more. I also learned about how teams connect and interact and how being a collaborative partner and connective tissue within an organization holds so much value.
Over the past 5 years or so I moved out of K12 education/edtech and into early childhood/parenting technology. I have two of my own children (4 and 2) and know first hand just how much information parents need about parenting. Through my work at Higher Ground Education/Guidepost Montessori as well as Lovevery, I have helped organizations reimagine their place in the world of parenting startups and rethink how parents access content related to parenting.
I have launched new digital products and services for families and understand the cross functional nuances that go into building something from scratch. I am a user-first driven creator and always think about the experience of the person using the product.
Personally, I love cooking and all things food-related. I also am an ex-theater major and to listen to Broadway show tunes and sing to myself in the car. My kids think I’m nuts. I promise I won’t burst into song on our call!! I look forward to connecting with you and learning more together!
Percy B.
In previous mentoring experiences, I've guided other creatives (brand and product designers) through navigating an in-house design role; I've also offered advice around freelance and recharging from work.
Twenty excites me because I'm able to give back to the generation beyond me, and in a sense be able to give back to my past 20-odd-year-old self. And at least in unprecedented times, trying to alleviate some of the stress navigating through those uncertainties.
Nikhil K.
Why am I here?
I've had the pleasure of having mentors in my life who helped me through some of the most challenging times. Im here to do the same for others.
Im currently at Apple building computer vision algorithms for the cameras hundreds of millions of people use. I love it and the life I’ve built. The least I can do is give a helping hand.
Katia T.
My name is Katia and I am the Head of Product at Mighty, a platform that empowers the next generation through creativity and the skills of entrepreneurship. I’ve been a part of the NYC tech scene for 7 years now as a product manager and project lead. Over time I’ve discovered that I have a knack for nurturing happy, cross-functional teams and am obsessed with building playful consumer products that help individuals believe in themselves and realize their potential. Eventually, I’d like to launch a company of my own.
So why am I here? I see mentoring as a skill and a give and take. I get mentored and like to mentor as way of improving my capabilities and a way passing it forward. But also, I enjoy human connections more than anything else. I can’t wait to partner together to help you navigate a defining decade and this beautiful thing called life.
Katie K.
Hey hey! I’m Katie, the founder & ceo of twenty! Up to this point, I’ve been building twenty behind the scenes, but I got FOMO… so now I’m here to join the party 🙂 Can’t wait to meet many of you in person - I’ve heard so much about you!!
To give a more “formal” introduction…
But here’s my real talk, just for twenty:
With all this in mind, I can’t wait to meet you. Thank you for being here 🫶
