Browse experts
Amelia W.
📕 Education tech
When I scroll through Instagram or LinkedIn, it can be easy to fill in the gaps with stories about other people: “Their career has been smooth sailing!”; “Their relationship looks so easy”; “How are all of my friends somehow in Italy right now?!” However, when we create space for authentic and genuine conversations, we quickly uncover that all of us are having imperfect and sometimes frustrating moments in our personal and professional lives; leveraging some combination of skills, luck, and privilege to navigate our careers and personal lives; and simply doing our best to grow and succeed in a challenging world.
When I left Teach for America as a transitioning teacher, I felt unsure how to land a job at a top startup or how to apply my leadership skills in a new industry. Through the support of mentors and networking, I was able to land a great role in Customer Success at a really exciting EdTech start up. After my successful transition into EdTech, I found that many teachers were eager to do the same, and I started offering pro bono mentoring sessions to provide advice on how to navigate the transition and set yourself up for success. After supporting 20+ mentees, I have learned that sometimes the most impactful tool a mentor can offer is to believe in the mentee and just nudge them along the path they are already building for themselves.
I am eager to help early career leaders (especially young women) harness their greatness, see their potential, and take bold steps toward the life they want to create. Mentors have been critical to my personal and professional growth, and I am eager to pay it forward.
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Jackie H.
💻 Startups
Hey! My name is Jackie Y. HU, born and raised in the city of Shanghai and had my first college dropout experience in Shanghai (ask me more!). At the age of 19, I moved to the U.S. with my parents and started college at UC Berkeley.
I wandered quite a bit in college and explored different aspects of college life before committing to taking Economics and East Asian Studies as my majors. I still remember how my college advisor wanted to dissuade me from doing two majors by saying ‘unless the other major is the first thing you want to do waking up Sunday morning’😅.
I still can’t wake up on Sunday mornings, BUT I am so happy that I wasn’t discouraged! Taking the East Asian Studies major and becoming involved in writing and conscious critical thinking really lifted me up spiritually, and that level of motivation made everything fall into places.
I LOVED social science and humanity so much so I decided to attend Oxford University for a master program that focused on contemporary China. The reason why I picked a UK school instead of a U.S. school (which is supposedly the strongest in the field) is that I just … loved a vegetarian buffet place in London so would want to always go back! Sadly by the time I attended Oxford, the restaurant was permanently closed down due to rising rent and I literally cried for 3 days and lost the sense of purpose going there.
At Oxford, I focused my research on a youth community in mainland China and did an interesting virtual ethnographic study about it (ask me more!).
I now work as a Data Science Manager at a dating company, leveraging data to spread love. I feel so loved by having the privilege to working with a group of super authentic, logical, reasonable, and open-minded people. My company has a very unique culture of bringing everyone close together while working and it exemplifies so many American ideals that attracted me to move to this country at the first place. I feel very proud of my work and fulfilled, and I am ready to invest in my mentees and to give back to the community that cultivated me!
At Twenty, being able to give authentic talk excites me! I love being explorative, real, and grounded with my mentees instead of coming to be prescriptive or pedagogical. Being authentic also helps us to learn from EACH OTHER — this would be a great opportunity for me to grow so I am looking forward to our conversations!! 😃
Christal W.
🌈 LGBTQ+
I’m a little bit of everything. From solo backpacking to permaculture farming (during the pandemic) to raising VC $ & running a startup to consulting to social impact… I’m happy to talk about it all. What strings across it all is my values & why I do what I do:
Life is not just about achievement & busy-ness. Life also isn’t about living for other people & their perceptions of you. That’s why I think it’s super important to know what is important to you and build a life that celebrates that. F everyone else 😇
Julia O.
🎨 Design & art
Hi there! I’m Julia, a mid-westerner who has spent my adult life in CA (Stanford for 4 years + 3 years in SF) and Austin, TX (past 2 years). I’m a former innovation consultant at a Management Consulting firm, and recently took 6 months away from the career hamster wheel to travel, read a lot, noodle on ideas, and spend time with family and friends. My next adventure is in the land of startups, where I recently joined a small 12-person team working to help athletes achieve their performance nutrition goals. While my whole career has been in the product space, I’ve jumped around a bit between design, innovation, and Product Management roles.
Outside of work, I stay busy with my 2-year old dog, Hazel, lots of outdoor adventures, racket sports, and exploring the live music and taco scene in Austin.
Why am I here? Mentoring is something that gives me a ton of energy, and I am where I am today because of my “village” of career mentors, close friends, family, and therapists helping me navigate my 20s. “The Defining Decade” is an accurate name for your 20’s - it’s when we start to build our careers, figure out our passions, and cultivate meaningful relationships. I believe each person needs that village of support to help them navigate this tricky decade and I would be honored to be part of someone’s circle of mentorship.
Kevin V.
💍 Getting married
I have a strong interest in driving value for visionary leaders and ambitious, mission driven organizations seeking to make a meaningful impact. Given the various industries and companies I’ve been a part of, I like to think I have a diverse and grounded perspective. At my core is the unwavering belief in servant leadership - placing the needs and well-being of others at the forefront of my actions.
I started my career in investment banking, both on the equity research and M&A side. Then I spent some time doing venture capital and private equity. Currently, exploring the “operator” side of me at a beverage company called Guayaki Yerba Mate and have done a few stints at startups (with Chief of Staff and finance-related responsibilities). On a personal note, I moved to Los Angeles from Texas (grew up in Austin, TX, went to college at Texas A&M, and lived in Houston for a few years) at the beginning of 2019. I am currently engaged and have a puppy Golden Retriever named Goose. When I’m not going on long walks and exploring new places with my fiancee, Tara, and Goose, you’ll catch me playing pickleball or golfing. On his lazier days, Kevin loves to watch any sports events on TV (and sometimes catches himself watching reality TV shows with Tara).
Shivani M.
🎉 Entrepreneurship
I'm a design strategist and management consultant with a background in sociology. I started my career as an entrepreneur and switched to corporate consulting. I’m now on track to start my own consultancy! I’m action-oriented and a big picture thinker. I love learning from real situations and hence, I’m an opportunist. I actively seek out ways to help others and grow myself at the same time!
Rajeev P.
📈 Marketing, sales, & business
Ask me/Talk to me about:
Katy H.
🌎 Social impact
After 5 years in digital advertising program management & production, I pivoted to become a classroom educator. As a teacher I've mentored new teachers and led instruction for groups of students from K-12 learners to adults in the business world. I recently made another transition to re-envision my work life, and currently work as a consultant developing curriculum (ie. online courses and learning experiences) for organizations like The Life Brief and Rewiring America.
Also, as is common for many people, some of my most important learning and personal growth has happened outside the classroom and the office. After studying World Arts and Cultures (Dance) and geography in college, I moved to Spain for a year to teach English. Traveling and immersing myself in different cultures through language and the arts has continued to be a big part of my life, inspiring trips to Mexico, India, Japan, Korea, and around Europe. Some other jobs and side projects that have shaped my perspective are leading interactive art tours in New York City, planting trees in LA, serving drinks on a cruise ship in the Bay—and during the pandemic, starting an interview-based podcast about learning styles & stories called Still Learning. I’m also a nonfiction & aspiring fiction writer, and believe in the power of telling our own stories in order to see and know ourselves more clearly.
I’m excited to be a mentor with Twenty because connecting with mentors has provided such comfort and inspiration for me in both my personal and professional life. Conversations I had with former teachers, managers and wise, slightly older friends helped me to name and eventually pursue both major career shifts as well as smaller, also meaningful, adjustments to how work fits into my life. Finally, as someone passionate about being a lifelong learner, embracing a growth mindset, emotional intelligence and seeing the career journey as a learning process—all of which I'd be eager to discuss—are all topics near and dear to my heart!
Claire J.
I’m Claire, a software designer and strategic planner. I’ve dipped my toes in many industries and skills with my main constant being my own high bar for building design driven and ethically-sound products in each of my work experiences.
I originally grew up in Houston, the fourth largest city in the US, with a highly medically-focused Argentinian-Jewish family. While studying pre-Med at Stanford and shadowing a few physicians, I found myself much more interested in the efficacy and beauty of their medical devices rather than the practice of talking to, diagnosing, and treating patients. That served as my wake up call to try out some engineering classes. Long story short, I loved them and ended up declaring Mechanical Engineering: Product Design as my major.
Having worked on a range of physical and digital products at Stanford related to the medical field; I decided to explore my ability to move and learn quickly by joining Accenture’s digital consulting practice after college. Fast forward 3 years, 6 industries, and 4 live products later, I felt I had acquired enough skills during my time at Accenture to lead design at a startup. That led me to a 10 person virtual fashion startup called Forma Technologies (recently acquired by Snap) for a brief 6 months until I realized I wanted to work at a medium sized company and have the ability to critique and collaborate with other designers again. I then landed my current position at Silicon Valley Bank where I was designer no. 5 to join our rapidly growing team of almost 45 designers now. I’ve now been at SVB almost 2 years and look forward to continued work building internal and external tools for our Global Fund Banking and Corporate Finance sectors.
In my personal life, I spend most my free time either playing and caring for my Aussie puppy named Gio 🐶, at Austin Bouldering Project (ABP), running, learning about climate change mitigation, painting, and hanging with loved ones! I also love to cook and bake and try new recipes (particularly on a Yotam Ottolenghi kick recently).
I’ve been mentoring via my Stanford, Accenture, and Brown networks both informally and more formally for a couple years. I particularly like working with passionate students and early/mid career employees to guide them to find what fulfills their purpose or ikigai in life and work. Understanding the concept of ikigai (japanese term for “reason for being”) and putting it in practice in my life played a significant role in my early twenties and the concept continues to keep me grounded and navigating my life in the right direction for me.
Devika P.
Hi! My name is Devika, and I'm a designer and public health researcher, originally from New Jersey, recently living in San Francisco, and now a medical student at Penn State University, College of Medicine.
I studied product design engineering before pivoting to focus my career on healthcare disparities research (via a Master’s degree in Community Health and Prevention Research). For the past five years, I was the Design Manager, and then Design Director at The Better Lab, an academic research laboratory that utilizes human-centered design to address vexing healthcare challenges facing disadvantaged patient populations in San Francisco and beyond.
Sam S.
Throughout my career, I've passionately dedicated myself to mentoring and teaching, recognizing the transformative impact it can have on individuals and communities. Through my Teach for America Experience and through my engagement with The Last Mile, I've nurtured the growth of students from diverse backgrounds, guiding them in harnessing design and technology for their future paths. With IDEO, my role as a Design Lead has enabled me to mentor professionals by integrating inclusive and human-centered design principles into learning experiences and leading initiatives like Disarming Whiteness to foster diversity and equity.
I am also an ICF-certified coach, and I have a career and life coaching practice called Alvita Coaching. My coaching practice has three primary offers: Vision & Vitality Coaching, Career Catalyst Coaching, and Next Gen Leadership Coaching (a career coaching program designed for 18-24-year-olds).
What excites me about twenty is that it is a service that I so desperately wished existed when I was in my twenties. The platform’s recognition that professional growth is inextricably linked to personal development resonates deeply with my holistic approach to mentorship. I am eager to be part of a community that doesn’t shy away from the tough, intricate discussions that pave the way for authentic growth and learning.
Joe G.
I’m Joe, a product manager who has background as an engineer, researcher and designer. I started my career in research, transitioned into consulting and transitioned these skills into product roles at various technology startups.
So far in my professional career, I’ve developed skills that span across product development from strategy, UX research, design and engineering. Having started my career in consulting and then transitioning to high-growth startups, I’ve worked internationally in 4 markets (Indonesia, Turkey, Amsterdam, and the UK) and 6 industries. From these experiences, I’ve strived to work on building meaningful products and experiences while helping create sustainable organizations and impact in local communities.
Aside from a tactical product skillset, my experiences have allowed me to develop as a people manager and leader. I’ve worked at organizations that offer B2B and B2C solutions, across all stages of maturity from seed funding to post-IPO fortune 500 organizations. I’m happy to discuss the nuances to my experiences and how to navigate these environments and advocate for personal growth throughout.
In addition, I currently advise entrepreneurs through my own agency services and as part of the Alter Global network. Outside of work, I love being active physically, socially, and mentally. I love exploring the ocean - while working at a YC startup in Indonesia, I recently received my master diver certification. Additionally, I have competed in various lengths of Triathlons keeping me busy with training on a weekly basis. I try to stay active in my local communities, serving as a KIPP mentor to low-income high school students.
Nikhil R.
Hey friends - my name is Nikhil and I'm so excited to be a mentor here at Twenty. I've explored quite a few non-traditional paths in my life from music, to medicine/global health, to social entrepreneurship, to public policy. I'm excited to share what I've learned to help you navigate your own journey!
Daniela V.
My name is Daniela and I grew up in San Diego surrounded by a love for the ocean, soccer and any outdoor activity! I moved to the Bay Area to attend Stanford University where I got my undergraduate degree in Product Design and my master’s in Learning, Design and Technology at the school of Education.I have experience working as a product designer, UX researcher and UX/UI designer at different sized companies. I am currently working on an EdTech startup focusing on social-emotional learning and early education. Happy to speak about any and all experiences! I love speaking to and learning from new people and love helping people learn from experiences I have had, mistakes I have made and from moments I have learned from.Creative brainstorming is my passion and being able to help people think creatively through their life is one of my favorite things to do!
Harry S.
Who am I? I'm Harry, currently based in Seattle. My journey has led me to the role of Chief of Staff at Quantive, where I've had the privilege to work on scaling operations, driving strategy, and supporting investment activities among other responsibilities. On the side, I’ve started a newsletter focused on my passion for exploring business strategies and investments in the soccer world.
Why am I here? Mentoring holds a special place in my heart because of its transformative power. I believe in the value of good guidance and how it can steer us closer to our aspirations. I would not be where I am today without a mentor who helped me entirely rethink how I was approaching my career. Out of all the skills, degrees, and jobs you can have, I firmly believe it's the people and networks you build that can propel you into a life and career you've always wanted. That’s why I’m here—to offer you the insights I’ve gathered on my own journey and hopefully make your path a little easier to navigate. I'd like to give back to others what my mentor gave to me and help those who are facing the same challenges or questions I had.
Sohan M.
Heylo! I’m Sohan Mone. My mission is to deliver infrastructure that expands access and unlocks society’s potential - let’s just say, we have a lot of work that needs doing! I’m a structural engineer by trade and I specialize in rail bridges (high-speed rail, monorail, LRT, and metro-rail). 🚆My background is in seismic engineering and structural dynamics, but I’ve since joined a design-build contractor that focuses on big infrastructure.Today, I can say that I’m a key player in winning lucrative government contracts valued in the billions! I also dabble in scripting and data science as it relates to my role, and have done some freelance work as well.I LOVE what I do… but it wasn’t always this way! Getting to this mindset was a struggle.I believe the 20’s are a time where it’s okay to fail. These years are about exploration, discovery and taking measured risks! It’s about finding out what’s meaningful to you!If you’re not sure what you want to do, or are just feeling unfulfilled - I’ve been there, and I’m all ears!!
