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.
Eduardo L.
I was born and raised in Mexico City. I studied Finance in one of Mexico´s top schools. Professionally, I jumped from corporate finance at a global consumer company, to investment banking at a leading global bank, to private equity and venture capital at the World bank before I figured out what I love. I currently work for an e- logistics startup were I have found the intelectual challenge of building the Strategic Finance department from the ground up. I am aiming to finish the year with 10 people in my team, up from just myself 4 months ago.
Personally, I recently got married after dealing with a long distance relationship. There were tough times, but I can say that it has worked out and I could not be happier.
As for Twenty, I loved the idea of mentoring for Twenty because it is a resource that I would have love to have when I first started my personal and professional journey as a young professional.
I am passionate about chess, soccer and Formula 1. Fluent in Spanish and English.
Ishaan P.
I spent my twenties living in the constant flux of trying to find a direction that felt like it was truly "mine", while also doing my best to be intentional about accelerating my growth. I saw tremendous personal and professional growth during this time. I'm really happy that I spent my time exploring multiple domains - I worked in academia as a researcher, I tried starting a company (and learned a lot when it didn't work out), I switched careers, and finally landed on a path that I fell in love with. In my personal life, I ended a 7-year relationship, juggled old and new friends constantly moving cities, found my person, got married and moved between multiple cities. I'm lucky to have had a lot of help from incredible mentors along the way, and I would love to help in whatever way that I can.
Becca R.
I’m a nomad (I’ve lived in 3 countries and 4 states), career transitioner (former neuroscientist now working in tech), and lifelong learner (3 degrees and counting). For the last 5 years I’ve been working in educational technology, and I've spent my free time doing community outreach related to career transitions, largely focused on early career researchers—my former cohort.
This program excites me because it's something that I wish I'd had in my 20s. My experience as a twenty-something was nothing like my parents—my dad was a solider in Vietnam and my mom got married at 21—they both worked in stable office jobs that they each held for 20+ years. I, on the other hand, went to college to study science, which led to a pretty unstable, nomadic lifestyle. I didn't have any adults in my life growing up who had an experience even close to this, so I received very little (or relevant) guidance from anyone. This has led me to take the "long-way" round (several times) only to find out later that there was a better way.
While making mistakes and learning from failure is a staple of life, I would like to use my learning experiences to help younger individuals know about as many of the choices available to them as possible. I recently heard the phrase "lift as you climb", and I think that being a mentor at Twenty will help me lift others—even if only one step at a time.
Outside of work and mentoring, I’m going to school (again!) for an executive MBA to shore up my business skills. My free time is mostly spent hanging out with my two cats (Mick and Oscar), enjoying the performing arts (I love theater and standup), and learning to be a better artist (I’m taking a linocut class soon that I’m really excited about).
Sonya S.
I’m a first-generation Indian American with a mashup of Southern manners (born and partially raised in Tennessee) and West coast values (moved to the Bay Area, CA for middle and high school). After high school, I went to Boston for undergrad and stayed for a couple years after before coming back to the Bay. And soon, I’ll be moving Seattle!
Like many undergrads, I started college wanting to be a doctor. I stuck with it all the way through taking the MCAT, nose to the grindstone, before realizing that I wasn’t actually interested in 7+ more years of training. After some reflection, I landed in management consulting for biotech, where I worked for a few years before transitioning to my current role in public health. The thread of science/healthcare has remained throughout my career, but I’ve had the privilege of being exposed to many different roles by working as or working with VC, hedge funds, research/academia, pharma and biotech, and private and public industry.
When I’m not working, I…
I always found that some of the best advice I received was from people who were my peers or only a few years ahead of me. It felt like a low-stakes way to get advice and ask "dumb" questions of people who understood where I was coming from. I’ve sought advice from all avenues—colleagues, family members, friends, strangers on the internet, and even DMs to cool people on LinkedIn. It’s time for me to pass on some of what I’ve learned 🙂
Jenny M.
The adventure keeps going.
I’m excited to help you find your voice, your platform for beliefs and self-confidence in a shifting and challenging world.
Ari G.
Hannah S.
I’m originally from Tampa, Florida, where I grew up surrounded by family (I have an identical twin and two other siblings). I went to school at UNC Chapel Hill, which I absolutely loved, where I majored in Business and minored in Journalism. The desire to explore the intersection of business, creativity and technology led me to a career in marketing. I also love photography as a creative outlet, so you can check out my work here: https://www.hannah-smith-photography.com/
Georgina C.
