Browse experts
Christie L.
💻 Startups
When I meet new people, I like to say that I grew up with Southern sensibilities and East Coast values. Take what you will from that.
I spent my childhood between Baton Rouge, Louisiana and the greater Dallas, Texas areas. I was fortunate to have two older brothers who navigated the American public school system in the South, college applications and the job search as Asian Americans. They filled in many of the gaps that my parents, who will forever be immigrants in their eyes and others, had.
After graduating high school, I moved to the East Coast to attend Wellesley College, an all women’s college right outside Boston. I loved it, and that’s all I’ll say here. Please ask me more.
Prior to graduating, I realized that I needed to delay my graduation by a few months because I was missing one core requirement…don’t tell my parents. (Yes, I am 30 and still keeping some of my academic history a secret from my parents.)
I was fortunate to have internships during my college years, mostly geared towards the public sector. However, after graduation, my career has take me down a path of product and strategy within financial services and healthcare.
Mentorship has been so valuable to me as both a mentor and mentee. The most exciting aspect of mentorship is that both people grow and hopefully make better decisions because of the relationship.
Gabrielle W.
😎 Consulting
I've been a mentor with my alumni group for years. I also work with two charities - one that provides financial counseling to young families and one providing comfort to terminally ill children.
I am a bit older than some of the other mentors, but it took me a bit longer to get my professional career to a place where I now feel I can give back in this way. I am 37 and look like I am in my mid-20s. I know the feeling of being in the corporate world and trying to be taken seriously but being looked at as a "little girl." I want to help other young women navigate the corporate world with confidence.
Madelyn S.
📕 Education tech
I’m Maddy and I’m excited to meet you! I’m super passionate about education, great marketing, and social impact.
I’m a Bay Area native — I grew up in Marin County, moved to Los Angeles for college at the University of Southern California, and now live in San Francisco.
I’ve had a mix of roles across research, marketing, and business development/partnerships. Currently, I’m part of the industry partnerships team at Coursera — helping companies like Google and Facebook create job-training programs for people around the world. I’ve also worked at design and marketing agencies (IDEO and Hero Digital) in marketing and business development roles.
Recently, I started my MBA at the University of Southern California (USC). This is a hybrid program, and I’m working full-time while in the MBA program. Happy to discuss any topics pertaining to applications, managing work/school schedules, and more.
Over the last 8 years I’ve mentored middle school, high school, college, and post-undergrad students across a wide range of both professional and personal topics. I am thrilled to be part of Twenty to help share tips and tricks on what I wish I had known in my early twenties.
Jamie P.
🩺 Healthcare
I know how beneficial it can be to have relationships with people who are just ahead of you in their career and life. I personally have benefited from this, and would like to help others in this way. I’ve spent the last nearly 15 years trying to figure out what how to find fulfillment in my career and personal life. I’m still on that journey, and would love to join you on yours.
Morgan H.
🧦 Fashion & retail
Hi there! I am a Nashville, TN native, which I hear is a unicorn these days around here :). I graduated from UT Chattanooga, although huge UT Vols fan! I have the cutest little Pomapoo dog, Ollie, and live with my Fiancée. (Getting married in Dec 2023)
I started my career back in 2012 in the Recruiting Agency world. I learned the fundamentals (good and bad) in that world + met a lot of good connections, that I still communicate with now. I found my passion lied in the Corporate space so switched over to my first Corporate recruiting job in 2015 and have never looked back!
While at my past company Asurion I stood in as the main mentor on our TA team. I thoroughly enjoyed having 1:1 conversation with my teammates about what their future career could look like, giving them advice, I had learned from my time thus far and how to approach certain situations. I have recently gotten into people management, and it still always takes me back to really enjoying the mentorship side of it.
I really feel everyone, especially in early stages, should get access to a mentor, or mentorship program. Remote work can make it very dangerous if there is not that structure, as most can feel on an island or scared to ask questions. Whether you are hunting for specific advice, or just want someone you can throw an idea to, I am happy to help!
Katya N.
🔥 MBA
Hi all! I’m Katya — I was raised in Bangkok, Thailand; my father is Indian-Thai, and my mother is American and German. I graduated from the International School of Bangkok and, at the age of 18, moved to Burlington, VT to pursue a Bachelors of Science in Social Work. I then went on to receive a Masters in Nonprofit Management from Northeastern University.
I started out my ecommerce career at Seed Health as one of its first hires, and helped build the foundations for their member experience, ecommerce and operations teams.
I recently transitioned out of my role as Director of Strategic Operations at Tomorrow Farms, a venture-backed food and beverage startup that I had joined pre-launch of its first brand and product, Bored Cow. In this role, (a la Chief of Staff), I was responsible for all customer experience, people & culture operations and internal communications, executive assistance, and internal operations, including process establishment and improvement and management of company softwares, systems and tools.
Having traveled to over 30 countries, my experiences in various cultures has deeply influenced how I build and scale with a human-centric approach. As a champion for candidate, employee and customer experience, I foster organizational health, drive operational efficiency, reduce friction, and eliminate pain points cultivated with the highest level of thought, care and intention.
John N.
💻 Startups
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.
🙏 First-gen
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!
Reza S.
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.
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.
Natalya T.
Midwest gal at heart but spent the last decade and counting on both coasts. I have varied interests and professional experiences, and I refuse to be defined by one thing. Your 20s are such a formative time, and I can’t wait to empower people to enjoy the process of being in that phase of life, instead of trying to get to certain outcomes.
Brian H.
I've had a weird career. I’m a Computer Engineering college dropout, turned Recording Engineer in a music studio. I absolutely loved working in music, but was a bit scared that my entire personality was based around it, so after 8 years in the industry, I made the terrifying decision to leave my comfort zone and try something new. I picked up my life, moved to NYC, and switched industries. Since then, I’ve worked my way up to VP of Operations at a fashion technology startup, and I’ve absolutely loved the journey.
One day my goal is to open up a series of music venues, but for now, I’m continuing to learn the ins-and-outs of starting and scaling a business.
I pride myself on being a generalist, and love learning a lot about a lot. My favorite things to do are:
The fun (professional) highlights:
Outside of work, I enjoy pretty much anything to do with creating/working with my hands. My biggest passion is making music & helping others do the same. I also love gardening, woodworking, and am currently teaching myself to sew & work with metal. I knew nothing about fashion before joining up with my current company, CALA, but have absolutely loved digging into the industry and now I browse around fashion brands for fun.
Mihir P.
Hey Mentees, I grew up in Chicago and currently live here. I also lived in Salt Lake, Utah area, and most recently in Austin, Texas. I love exploring cities and local culture. My wife and I share an 8 month old son name Liam who we dearly love. And we have a very needy dog Leo who also we dearly love. Life on the home front is fun and never gets boring.
I studied Finance and Accounting, but didn’t pursue the field right away. Instead, I worked on other people’s startup ideas which eventually led to my own Humble Pen. This is when I got the product bug. I couldn’t scale the idea, so I moved on, and learned how to write web applications. I got my first job at Morningstar in their engineering rotational program. I rotated through several teams back-end, front-end, cyber security team, AWS team and finally design system team. I got a design bug while being on Morningstar’s Design System team. I made a switch back into Product Management. Today I am at Charles Schwab helping them rebuild their robo advisor offering. Product Management is many things but I like to use design lens to solve product problems. That is core part of my skill.
I also like building side projects. My most recently one was Wise Charlie which I sold in 2021. Currently I am building Big Imposter which is about imposter syndrome.
Outside of work, I like to read a lot and write a lot. When I am under-thinking, I read. And, when I am overthinking, I write. I also run a quarterly newsletter called mihirchronicles. It is nothing but a play zone for me. I also like to make art. Love the outdoors (bike and hike), exercising, playing basketball and tennis.
My 20s were all about exploration and my 30s are all about executing. This occurred to me while reflecting back on my career. My core belief is using your 20s to explore as much as you can. I have lived this and despite of having a few setbacks, life worked out great. I want to share this with others and help them do the same. This is my primary motivation to give back.
I am thrilled to talk to anyone who would like to have a conversation.
Mihir
Mariano S.
I’m originally from Argentina, and moved to Florida as a kid. I studied CS at Stanford (2016), and there I made many friends, learned about engineering and Bitcoin, and changed my mindset.
I worked at a fintech company (Token) for a few years, and at a crypto company (Chia) building the blockchain and crypto protocols for 4 years. That entire time I was doing engineering and engineering management.
Last year, I started a VC job and had a significant shift in my career (although still in the crypto space). I am using the skills I learned before, to invest in companies and analyze the crypto industry. I’m super excited about the potential of crypto to enable the whole world to transact freely. Of course I’m very intrigued by AI as well.
I have always loved teaching coding and technical subjects to peers in college or at work. I enjoy helping other people, but I haven't had too many opportunities to do this.
Looking forward to meeting!
Mishaal N.
Lawyer by education, entrepreneur by nature. Co-founded a creative agency, worked in D2C, and in early-stage Venture Capital. Excited to be mentoring on Twenty to help people through some of the decisions I was always confused by!
Jackson F.
I grew up in Foster City, California with my mom Laura, dad Jack and sister Shannon. I have always loved singing, and participated in musical theater, choruses, and an a cappella group along the way. I hold my own at guitar if you give me some easy chords to play. I also grew up playing baseball (1B/OF), soccer (Goalkeeper), and swimming. I still occasionally play in rec leagues around the Bay Area.
I grew up fascinated by psychology, sciences, and arts, and studied Bioengineering at the University of Pennsylvania. There I grew my appreciation for biological sciences, but became more and more interested with the business side of operating life science companies. I joined ZS Associates, a consulting firm with a focus in the life sciences industry. There I was privileged to be able to focus on building customer engagement strategy for oncology medicine manufacturers, learn core concepts in data-driven strategic decision making, and build operational skills. A call to entrepreneurship led me to UCLA Anderson’s School of Management to pursue my MBA.
The next step is to create products. My goal is to build products by developing Edily in the education space, creating experiences for customers that will change the way that education is shared in the world and improving access, comprehension, and the skills that make learning a valuable pursuit in our lives.
.png)
.png)
