Eric K.
😎 Consulting
Howdy y’all! Eric here - currently in my last semester of an MBA/M.Ed dual degree program at Stanford. My 20s were a hop-around kind of decade personally and professionally - created a little visual representation of that below:
About as un-linear a career path as you can find, but it’s been a fun ride. Along the way, I learned a lot about what a “good job” looks like for me, as well as what I want in my life outside of work. Does it mean I have it all figured out? Quite the contrary, but I’ve learned to embrace being a little bit lost and a lot of curious all the time. After Stanford, that will likely mean working in the social sector (probably in education) and living back in Austin (where I was prior to school).
I’ve had countless conversations with strangers during my 20s - with people who had no obligation to help me out or to give me their perspective, but who did so anyway (often after I reached out cold). I mentor today to pay it forward, holding a sprinkle of hope that I might be that randomly helpful person to someone in your shoes.
I’m about as positive and as energetic a person as you’ll find (fun fact: without having ever sipped coffee!), and you can expect more of the same from me as a mentor. In those moments where life gets real, we’ll find a silver lining or a path forward, and if I don’t have the answers you need, I’ll give it my all to find you someone who does.
Excited to hear from you - let’s get crankin’!
Ankush T.
💻 Startups
I'm Ankush, and I am currently pursuing my MBA at London Business School. As an engineer turned consultant turned start-up & venture capital enthusiast - I've straddled various roles and would be happy to chat about any of them.
I'm an ambitious individual using my curiosity and passion to drive my decisions and carve my path in life. Obviously, along the way, I've faltered and learned from my experiences - would love to share and hopefully help you out in the process!
Janae B.
📕 Education tech
- Served as Peer Advising Fellow in college (mentor to college freshmen)- Served as official student recruiter on behalf of Harvard College Admissions- Harvard College Alumnae Interviewer- Currently a ICF certified professional coach; 100+ coaching hours (1:1 client sessions)- Born and raised in Miami, FL- I’m constantly on the move!- I teach beginner dance classes on the side
Lucy S.
🎯 Taking a side gig full-time
Hi, I’m Lucy! I’m so happy to be here. Let me give you a little glimpse of who I am and what my twenties were like 😊
I love quotes so I’ll first start out with one by Elizabeth Gilbert to set the tone ;)
“Do whatever brings you to life, then. Follow your own fascinations, obsessions, and compulsions. Trust them. Create whatever causes a revolution in your heart”.
How I Discovered Twenty & My Passion to Mentor: About a month ago, I confided in a friend about my desire to make a more significant impact in the lives of individuals navigating this unique phase of life, beyond my work as a therapist. I was struggling to pinpoint the ‘how’ I was going to do this, but my friend encouraged me to let it go and that opportunities sometimes show up when they are meant to show up.
A month later, I saw an old teacher of mine on LinkedIn commenting on one of Twenty’s posts that Katie, the CEO of the company, had written. I began to read about why she was creating Twenty, and I deeply resonated with all of the points she made around this “defining decade”. Something inside me knew I needed to be a part of what she was creating.
And here I am!
I am such a strong believer of having mentors in your 20s. When we have mentors, we can truly “see to believe” what’s possible for us when we have direct access to people who possess what we desire or have gone through something challenging and made it to the other side.
I’m so looking forward to meeting all of you and helping you on your path forward!
Roberto B.
💡 Product
I LOVE mentoring and teaching, and have done so since my early undergrad years! Besides being a teaching assistant for multiple classes during undergrad and grad school, I had an undergrad scholarship called TEPP (which translates to Tutoring, Teaching, and Research of PUC) where I mentored multiple students. During my MBA, I was an Arbuckle Leadership Fellow, a program in which I took coaching classes and coached 3 students during their first year at the MBA. I'm excited to be a mentor at Twenty so I can help people while doing what I love the most - coaching you through the different problems in life and sharing my experience with you!
I’m a founder with work experience across early-stage (Shef), growth-stage (Instawork), pre-IPO (DiDi) and big tech (Google) companies. I specialize in operations and product management of marketplace startups, always bringing a strong emphasis on data storytelling and analytics to every decision I make with a team. My background includes Data Science, Operations and PM positions, besides a BSc and MSc in Electrical Engineering, and an MBA from Stanford Graduate School of Business.
Kat F.
📈 Marketing, sales, & business
I’m a mom and marketing professional, with over a decade of experience building brands and culture at large organizations and high-growth startups. My career started with the question, “What now?” English degree in hand, with email writing as my superpower, I entered a mentee program at Franklin Templeton to find my place in the corporate ecosystem.
Career and life moves since:
👉🏼 Moved from SF to Portland
👉🏼 Got a job at adidas in Digital Innovation
👉🏼 Met my now-wife, quit my job, and moved to Los Angeles
👉🏼 Joined an electric scooter startup in Series A and ended up in NYC for the IPO bell-ringing ceremony four years later
👉🏼 Became a mom at the height of the pandemic (July 2020)
👉🏼 Joined a seed startup as the first marketing hire
👉🏼 Partnered with LinkedIn as an LGBTQ+ Creator
👉🏼 Joined a Series A startup in DEI tech to build & grow their marketing department
👉🏼 Started a professional newsletter for people leaders (The Break Room)
Reza S.
📕 Education tech
Hey, I’m Reza 👋 I'm currently living in Toronto.
I've spent the last decade leading growth and marketing at early-stage (Seed to Series B) tech startups as a FT employee or an advisor. Most recently, at On Deck during our rapid growth phase from 60 to 320 headcount. I joined as marketing hire #3 and grew that team to 300+.
My superpower (and what gives me energy) is being an early (or first) GTM hire to navigate the initial ambiguity and build the foundation for long-term growth.
I nerd out to all things personal knowledge management, football ⚽️, fitness and nutrition. I’ve lived in 4 countries across Asia, Europe and North America.
I didn't find my college education particularly stimulating, interesting or rewarding. I took a leap of faith early in my career and left my predictable engineering job to start my own company and embark on the startup rollercoaster. I haven't looked back since.
Eric I.
🙌 Nonprofit
Hey Twenty Mentees! I’m a Bay Area native who relocated across the country to Raleigh-Durham four years ago with my now-wife so that she could pursue her PhD. Since then, we have grown into home-owners, dog parents, and travelers, just to name a few. I’m 30 years old and spent most of my twenties balancing aspirations and expectations.
Since leaving Stanford in 2015, I’ve worked for several different companies, in different stages of growth, with different levels of product strategy. I consider myself to be a “small company” or “early stage” contributor because I like wearing a lot of hats and immediately seeing the impact of my work and leadership abilities.
I started as a Sales Engineer, moved to Product Marketing, and have been in Product ever since. I’ve learned more about what I value in leaders, especially in business, and the work environments I thrive in. It’s been a long, arduous process that has taken time, patience, and discipline - and realizing that true meritocracies are hard to come by. I’ve also had to learn how to avoid the existential crises and comparisons that would trigger anytime I learned about another friend’s accomplishments.
Outside of work, I have found hobbies that allow me to also fund do what I enjoy doing. It has been a long, arduous process to learn work-life balance. But, I’m now invested in outdoor leadership opportunities as an adventure travel guide with Mountain State Overland. A true passion project that allows me to have an additional stream of income and skills doing what I love the most: teaching, leading, and hosting a good time.
Lastly, mentorship is difficult. It takes a lot of time and commitment to get to a healthy mentorship relationship, whether that’s providing the right kind of feedback, perspective, and upholding commitments to each other. For many years, I’d been involved with EDGE Youth Leadership out of Northern California leading their program development team and as the Co-Executive Director. Mentorship and leadership have been passions of mine since high school.
John N.
I come from a low-income first-generation household and spent 8 years as an officer in the U.S. Navy before pivoting into a PM role at Meta. I then became a Project Manager supporting eLearning efforts at Google before transitioning into my current role as a Senior Project Manager at Boeing. I understand both sides of the coin when it comes to military/civilian life and the challenges that come with each. I'm currently a mentor for transitioning veterans through Veterati and have been in the mentorship space for over 10 years. A big passion of mine is sharing the knowledge I've learned in order to set folks up on a trajectory towards success. Twenty is a program I see big potential in because of the capability to create huge impact for such a small personal investment on my part. I'm excited to have the chance to not only help you navigate your professional career but also be a resource for life in general.
Jara M.
I’m an educational strategist, program designer, and illustrator. With a background in art and education technology, the bulk of my work aims to mitigate the education and equity gap using design. Currently, I work at Webflow where I scale education programming for the larger design community and students. Prior to Webflow I worked at Coursera as a Program Manager and Salesforce as an Instructional Designer.I’ve worked as a mentor since 2016, specifically looking to increase access to tech for underrepresented communities (Black, Latinx, disabled). I've mentored with SMASH, BuiltByGirls, and Young Data Scientists League (YDSL). Related, I am currently the Outreach and Education lead for Techsgiving, where I teach UX design & prototyping to students.I grew up in Palo Alto, but currently live in Brooklyn!
Rachel L.
I’m a product marketer at Intuit on the QuickBooks team. Recently, I graduated from UCLA Anderson School of Management with my MBA, where I focused on Marketing Analytics and Technology Management. It’s great to meet you 😊
Nicole C.
I’ve been a mentor and coach before for both W&M undergrads and Darden first-year MBA candidates. I’ve also been on the other side of the table and have had incredible mentors to learn from in my own circle. I feel incredibly fortunate to have been supported in taking some non-traditional leaps in my career and personal life and am excited to pay it forward in support of others!
Some fun facts:
Kevin K.
Hello! I've just completed my MBA and am currently based in LA. I've mostly lived in California (10+ years, including 4 as an undergrad at USC) and grew up in East & Southeast Asia (I'm also not a US citizen!) Professionally, I've worked as a management consultant in SF and also as a strategic planner / business operations generalist at an LA-based public charter school district (a nonprofit). I recently began working at Beyond Meat and the learning curve’s pretty steep and humbling, so if you're in the same boat then I know your struggle! Outside of work, I love watching and playing tennis, listening to podcasts while I'm out and about, cooking new dishes, and going to the movies. I'm on Twenty because I'm a lifelong learner and I wish I had access to this platform as a resource when I was adulting in my twenties. Ultimately, I'm here to be a resource; whether that's being a whiteboard to discuss career directions, whether to apply to an MBA, adapting to the nebulous nature of life post-college, or something else from what I've written above. Happy to schedule regular conversations or to have one-off chats for more specific questions!
Megan R.
My name is Megan - I'm excited to meet with you as a Twenty mentor! By way of background, I majored in Economics and French Cultural Studies at Wellesley, and then I worked in investment banking and private equity. I’ve also volunteered at a nonprofit organization developing a curriculum to teach personal finance skills to underserved communities in NYC. Happy to talk about all things related to managing your career, finance, managing personal finances and more!
Kali R.
I am a brand and product marketer, writer, and content enthusiast deeply interested in how media intersects with technology. I’m a recent Columbia Business School grad where I focused on media and product strategy in my coursework. During school, I worked with Spotify helping launch their new audiobooks vertical. I also worked at seed-stage venture firm: Overton VC as their Content Development Intern, where I represented both the firm and its portfolio company’s initiatives from a strategic communications perspective. I spent my years prior to business school working in brand and product marketing for Google – running global campaigns for brand moments, kids and family products, and Google Cloud events. My previous professional experiences include BlackRock and Goldman Sachs. Personally, I’m a yoga fanatic, big reader, podcast listener, and write my own Substack newsletter providing content recs called Sorry to Stare.
The phrase: your 20s are a mismarketed decade resonates with me greatly. twenty, its mission, and business is something I wish I had started myself as I think there is SUCH a need and market for this type of community support! They are a time of great joy, challenge, freedom, and at times, disquiet. I enjoy mentoring greatly, as a junior board member at Girls Inc. of NYC, I've worked with a committee of teammates to plan events, fundraisers, and auctions on behalf of local teen girls in need. I have identified my superpower in and outside of work in mentorship. I find immense value in helping my community in career and personal development. During my MBA program, I worked as a Career Management Center fellow, where I was professionally trained to offer industry exploration and education guidance, networking best practices, résumé and cover letter reviews, pitch preparations, and mock interviews. Thus, I know how to quickly shift my perspective when it comes to diversity of thought in order to give informed advice.
Pedro R.
I am a first-generation immigrant who was born in Peru and raised in the suburbs of Massachusetts. I began my academic journey in community college, and continue it at MIT Sloan this fall. My professional path has been equally diverse. I began my career as a bartender. Over time, I have worked in Finance, Consulting, and EdTech, all in a variety of roles. Career navigation is very important to me - I see it as a critical step in forming your adult identity. Having only recently exited my twenties, I am excited to provide guidance and clarity as I am to learn from you and your perspectives. Mentors have helped me tremendously over the years, and I look forward to passing on what know (and what I don’t know) to future generations.