The human side of capital

Much of who I am comes from my grandfather.

Years ago, he and his brother started a small biscuit company in Bangladesh, then turned it into one of the largest confectionery businesses in the country.

I grew up being around and looking up to him from a young age—his vision, passion, grit, hard work and dedication. He taught me the importance of thinking, acting and optimizing for long time horizons. Great things take time. Optimize for what you want your legacy to be.

At Stanford, I found myself surrounded by people who shared this same belief—and who had ambition pulsing through their veins in a way I’d never seen before. (Baris was one of these people, by the way.) The combination of drive, purpose and long-term thinking created an energy I loved.

That's the kind of energy Baris and I wanted to surround ourselves with when we started Human Capital. We love thinking about all the ways we can help engineers and founders—finding them the jobs they crave, investing in them as they get their companies off the ground, and developing new services that help them in new ways. We love bringing the right people and resources together.

Most people meet their first recruiter when they’re looking for their first internship. I grew up with a recruiter: my mom. She ran an executive search firm in Turkey and we hosted candidates over for dinner frequently. Before I’d graduated from high school, I was more indoctrinated than your average teenager to the concept of career development and personal growth goals. The thing is, I also enjoyed those conversations more than your average teenager. I loved being around ambitious, driven people, then watching my mom match their underlying motivations with high-impact opportunities.

It became clear to me that when you find people with potential to do great things, and you help them do those things at scale, you make an entire ecosystem better. Find the people with that fire in their belly, that inextinguishable flame, the ones you fundamentally believe will make net positive change. Remove the barriers getting in their way. Amplify their strengths. Get out of the way when you need to. Make systematic impact.

These are the people we’ve built Human Capital around. These engineer founders are our center of gravity. People like Valentin Perez, founder of Monthly, who wants to create a universe of learners. Or Henrique Dubugras, founder of Brex, who wants to build financial infrastructure so more businesses can exist, because businesses produce a tremendous source of social good.

I fundamentally believe that the future belongs to those who can build it, and I love that I get to spend my days with engineers and founders are actually building it.

I took my first unpaid job as an analyst intern at an energy company when I was 14. I studied wind energy infrastructure investment opportunities for a renewable energy & construction company. My first paid job? Playing center for Turkey’s U18 national hockey team. (They compensate the players.)

I do what it takes to make Human Capital tick. My role includes fundraising, investor communications, strategy, financial forecasts, and budgeting—among a handful of other things.

My past has prepared me to take on each of these challenges: forming solid business foundations at McKinsey, getting exposure to global investments at Mubadala, scaling a start-up at Hello, and most recently as part of the investment team at Softbank.

I grew up and was educated in India, where I received an Engineering Degree followed by a Master’s. My education led me to the US, where I went to business school at Wharton.

I love people and relationships. That includes long-term partnerships that I’ve cherished for years, and new connections that I make everyday. I’m an extrovert in the truest sense.

I am so fortunate to have a loving wife, two beautiful children, and the world’s best puppy, Dumpling.

I would spend all my time learning about the public markets and macroeconomics.

I’d love to write a book someday—I just have no idea what it would be about (yet). Perhaps I’d cover my experiences in Silicon Valley, or maybe I’d write a soppy love story.

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I’m a medieval historian by academic training (perhaps not the most traditional of HR backgrounds!), and have long been fascinated by the intersection of culture, behavior, psychology, and tradition.

I began my career in the world of editorial content, and led teams responsible for producing various specialty food magazines (first Italian food, and then spicy food from around the globe). In addition to allowing me to cultivate a sort of extreme cookbook collection, these experiences working with a passionate community of readers helped shape my foundation of supporting and communicating culture at organizations.

I’m privileged to serve as the Chief People Officer at Human Capital, partnering with our internal teams to make our people practices absolutely best in class. Previously, I was the VP of People at Figma—where I oversaw a 10x growth of employee headcount.

I also love to teach, and am on the faculty of the People Leader Accelerator, an executive education program for HR leaders at high-growth organizations. Additionally, I serve as an advisor for PeopleTechPartners, a network of people leaders who advise early stage HR tech companies; and I’m completing my executive coaching certification with the Hudson Institute of Coaching.

When I’m not doing HR stuff, you may find me carving spoons, reading to my kids, or strolling the bluff trails up the California coast at Sea Ranch.

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What are some more of your hobbies?

I’m a lifelong musician, and started playing the cello at age five. I’ve also always loved playing with other people, and have had so much fun whether in orchestras or chamber ensembles. I took up a historical stringed instrument called the viola da gamba in college and haven’t looked back–ask me about teaching classes at “gamba camp” or prepping for concerts

As Chief Operating Officer, I’m responsible for the firm’s suite of services that supports our engineers and portfolio companies. I’m also responsible for the teams at Human Capital that enable us to do our best work: People, Engineering and Operations.

I’ve spent my entire career in talent—from placing engineers at the earliest dotcom startups to leading the Global Talent Acquisition team at Uber. Roles with Salesforce and Korn/Ferry along the way gave me the foundation and tools to approach the talent function with a balance of operational excellence and business acumen.

I’m a people person, but not an extrovert. I’m fascinated by the intersection of our dreams, fears, ego and humility. I love experiencing new cultures and learning how people’s beliefs and customs have been shaped.

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Math. My mother was a middle school math teacher for almost 50 years.

As someone who moved around a lot from an early age (I took my first international flight as a 3-month old!), I quickly learned the value of making connections with people, and over time recognized the importance of maintaining and nurturing those relationships. That trait would prove invaluable in the talent space and foster a career passion in recruiting.

I’ve spent the bulk of my career in high growth tech startups, seeing both the highs and lows of scale, market fit, and—perhaps most critically–hiring decisions. From starting out at Opower when it was a private, 30-person company, to helping Uber scale from 600 employees to 30,000, to leading Reddit’s recruiting team through the company’s fastest stage of hypergrowth—doubling the organization—I’ve had the opportunity to work with and build incredible teams.

My role at Human Capital is to partner with founders and leaders in building their own world class teams while also applying our learnings effectively across our portfolio to create maximum impact. I’m excited to lead a phenomenal team who brings this vision to life.

Outside of the office, you can find me exploring the east coast seasons with my husband, daughter, and schnoodle, or curled up with a good book.

A mentor of mine once summed up success in our field as “Communicate, Hustle, Communicate, Deliver.” That framework has stayed with me ever since, especially the emphasis on communication.

I've always been fascinated by the unique leverage that engineering provides the entrepreneur.

At a young age, I honed my skills as a hacker-entrepreneur over a string of businesses, each more technically ambitious than the last. Between high school and college, one of those businesses was accelerated by Y Combinator, transplanting me to the Bay Area from my home state of Texas.

Since then, I've gravitated to small technology startups where I could grow as a product engineer. I worked with Human Capital to find my first job out of college, which enabled me to experience the trajectory of a high-growth startup firsthand. The experience reinforced how fostering an inspiring engineering culture can position a company for long-term success.

I joined Human Capital to support engineers in thinking long-term about their careers and to enable the construction of the best engineering teams. At Human Capital, I manage all systems that connect our members and teams as well as the supporting infrastructure for our investment business.

My foray into programming began in high school, when I integrated a PayPal button into my e-commerce website to accept credit card orders for my apparel business.

I'm a lawyer with engineering in my blood. My father, his head and heart deep in the engineering challenges of his times (think early microprocessors), took our family on a trek around the globe to chase his craft. That took us from Iran, to Canada and finally to California–where he improved the SFMTA. Anytime I’m zooming in the tunnels on Muni, I have my dad’s software engineering skills to thank.

So I have an earned respect for engineers, their lives, and the monumental impact they have on the world around them. And though I did not follow in my father’s footsteps as an engineer, my career in law at Fenwick & West, Google Ventures, and AngelList has afforded me the privilege to support engineers and the companies they build.

I love that Human Capital is focused on the people element of this business. People much like my father—engineers who are building something great and are changing the world for the better.

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I was very much into video games (perfect for snowy days in Canada). Although I got my first bloody nose from a real life hockey stick, I got my first hockey win on the N64. I actually wanted to be a videogame designer as a kid.

Solving business problems via people resonates with who I am and what I care about. It’s why I chose a job in executive search straight out of college, and it’s why I’ve remained in the talent world throughout my career.

As someone who’s energized by different environments and problem sets, I’ve loved being able to experience companies at various stages of their growth cycles, and across different roles within recruiting. Most recently, I led the Global Recruiting Team at Pinterest, and before that worked at Uber and AppNexus, where I oversaw various teams ranging from tech recruiting to sourcing to diversity recruiting. Over that time, I lived and worked in New York City, London, and San Francisco.

As an Operating Partner at Human Capital, I partner with founders and recruiting leaders to build and scale their organizations. I care deeply about what I do and am inspired by working with those who chase big dreams.

After years of being a nomad, I’m now settled in the East Bay and am so lucky to have a wonderful husband, two (very high-energy) boys and a goofy dog named Bernie.

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I look up to my grandfather, a first-generation immigrant who was raised in the Bronx and became a school teacher. He was tough as nails on the outside but cared deeply about his work and his students. If I can make a fraction of the impact that he made, I’ll consider myself incredibly successful.

My father's legacy is a core contributor to my life's foundation. A country boy from Northern Ethiopia, his goal of seeking knowledge took him to the best university in the country, and later to grad school, receiving scholarships along the way. His strong sense of determination, optimism, courage, and love for adventure continue to guide what I do in life.

At Human Capital, I have the privilege of managing the university program. I lead a team of principals who partner closely with ambitious college engineers to help them find life changing career opportunities.

Outside of work, I’m mastering the art of parenthood, and I love discovering new cultures and languages through travel and cinema.

I’m midway through The Ride of a Lifetime by Robert Iger, CEO of Walt Disney Company. I find his journey over 45 years in media and entertainment fascinating–going from the lowliest studio grunt at ABC to running Disney and leading its 200,000 employees. Lots of advice on leadership centered around key principles on optimism, focus, decisiveness, curiosity and fairness. On the relentless pursuit of perfection, he shares that “this doesn’t mean perfectionism at all costs, but it does mean refusal to accept mediocrity or make excuses for something being ‘good enough.’ If you’re in the business of making things, be in the business of making things great.”

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Throughout my career I’ve focused on building strong teams and helping people around me reach their goals. As a Principal at Human Capital, I partner with founders to build their engineering organizations, and with engineers to elevate their careers. I invest my heart in what I do, care deeply about people I work with, and invest for the long term.

I grew up in a big Vietnamese family that immigrated to the United States together and settled down in Los Angeles in a tight radius (10 cousins lived on my block!).
I love that Silicon Valley is a small community where everyone knows everyone.

My favorite is Thinking in Bets: Making Smarter Decisions When You Don’t Have All the Facts by Annie Duke. A few others include: Less by Andrew Greer, Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison, Shoe Dog by Phil Knight, Atomic Habits by James Clear, and The Hard Thing About Hard Things by Ben Horowitz.

I am my father’s son, someone who cares about others deeply and gives first. I knew out of college that I wanted to help people, like my Dad, but did not know in which career path I could do that best. I started my career in finance helping folks create a plan to achieve their financial goals. I learned a lot about running my own practice but also knew this field was not for me.

The recruiting life chose me, I did not choose it. I started at Google as a contract sourcer. I learned how to find, court, and close top engineering talent and ended up being converted to full-time. I rose the ranks at Google redefining the way sourcers and recruiters use data to own and tell their story to business leaders. My wife and I helped open the Austin, TX office for Google. My claim to fame is hiring 100 sourcers in 5 weeks! I then moved onto Dropbox building the sourcing and tech staffing function at Dropbox from the ground up. Most recently I was the Global Head of Recruitment at Dropbox, helping to lead a team of 130+ Dropboxers developing and innovating cutting-edge staffing practices and outcomes.

I love to build systems and high functioning recruiting teams. I am very excited to do this for our portfolio companies.

I am most likely hanging with my wife (Nikki) and two young sons (Miles and Joseph). We enjoy making forts, building castles out of legos, and most recently riding our “big boy” bikes.

Growing up as an only child in the Midwest, I always gravitated towards community. Whether in athletics, business, or in service to our fellow man, I aimed to be a part of something larger than myself. This manifested into my professional career by recognizing how world class organizations are built and then using that knowledge to inform my journey of scaling businesses.

Before Human Capital, I spent time building product and engineering teams at Google, Addepar, and Redpoint Ventures. After my first stint in venture, I started a company that was eventually acquired by Human Capital. It was an obvious next step once I learned about the mission, the caliber of talent at HC, and the deep ambition to succeed.

My mom likes to say I’m a professional emailer and friend maker and it’s probably the most accurate description of what I do at Human Capital. But I also partner with our founders to develop organizational strategy. When I’m not writing Shakespearean prose to world-class engineers, you can find me playing hockey, golfing, hiking with my wife and dog (Frankie), or grilling hot dogs.

An investor I look up to once said: “The keys to success in business are actually pretty simple. Get the other person to like you. Get them to trust you. Prove to them that you aren’t dumb.” And while this isn’t necessarily profound, it does reinforce the notion that success and relationships are deeply intertwined.

’m a product of public schools all the way, and that experience has guided most of my decisions. After growing up in north Orange County (I can’t surf, sorry to disappoint), I traded my Rainbows in for Birkenstocks and went to Berkeley, where I studied Political Science and Education.

Seeing the wide range in how prepared my classmates were for Cal woke me up to educational inequity, so I decided to do something about it by becoming a teacher. I joined Teach For America and signed up for the highest-need region at the time, rural Arkansas, to teach 9th grade English. Each day of my four years there, I was humbled by my kids. I coached a rap club (long but fun story), helped lead community organizing efforts to build a new $30M school, and ate some exceptionally great barbeque.

After Arkansas, I spent a couple years recruiting Cal Bears to the classroom, and tried my hand at a few public policy fellowships before joining Human Capital.

I firmly believe that, if given the tools and opportunity, people will rise to the occasion. Here, that means working on all things people-related—building and supporting a team to operate at its best.

Not advice, but a question: “What’s your problem?” At Cal, a professor posed this to our class and said the answer should be the anchor of our careers. What problem keeps you up at night? Now go do something to fix it, and make it a career if you can. I think many of the startups we support originated from similar thoughts.

Growing up in a South Asian household, there was a clear singular optimization: better grades meant happier parents. I’m certain the incentive behind this was for me to learn skills to become a contributing member of society, but the delineation between my learnings and grades only became more apparent over time. Technology went from a hobby to the main focus, driving me to spend my undergraduate years studying electrical and computer engineering @ UIUC.

I started with building hacks, then building products, and eventually building companies. Startups founded in undergrad can teach you a lot, but perhaps the biggest learning for me was realizing the ‘x’ factor in achieving scale was talent–truly great engineers and entrepreneurs are rare.

This lesson ultimately led me to join Human Capital, first as a part of the community and eventually as an associate at the company. I have the unique privilege of meeting some of the most talented entrepreneurial minds in the world, bringing them together, supporting them through thick and thin, and investing in relationships that are timeless.

Raphael’s School of Athens. During the High Renaissance, many frescoes were done grouping famous philosophers and builders who saw the world differently. The key differentiator here was not stylistic choice, but rather its underlying contrarian thesis—Raphael believed that great minds don’t just stand around each other in some sort of scholarly line up. They mix, they engage, they debate, they build together. The congregation of these minds is what creates true greatness. That makes all the difference.

Entrepreneurship appealed to me from a very young age. I was always ready to do something tangible after quickly getting bored with theory. This interest solidified after a 4 week summer program at MIT in 10th grade, where we took entrepreneurship classes during the day and worked on our “startups” at night. It was one of the most fun experiences of my entire life, and that’s mostly due to the amazing people that I met.

I spent most of my high school and college career teaching other people about entrepreneurship and creating communities of friends who had similar interests. From starting an incubator in high school to leading several entrepreneurship organizations at Michigan, I enjoy creating avenues for others to discover entrepreneurship, hoping that it would have the same impact on their lives as it had on mine.

My role at Human Capital serves as the perfect continuation of that goal. I work with students to help them navigate their entrepreneurial journeys and figure out the tools they need to build something of their own.

When I was in middle school, we had a project that required us to redesign the school. It was theoretical, but I got really into it, making a pitch deck and a cardboard locker to show to the school board. I pitched it to them and they ended up adopting it, so the lockers at my middle school today are based off of my 8th grade project.

Being one of the oldest of over 50 cousins has had a major impact on who I am today. I’m passionate about helping others, as I’ve always been there for my family, and I’m extremely focused on efficiency and organization–someone has to keep everything in order, right?

At Human Capital, I do everything I can to keep things running smoothly for our executive team. I enjoy streamlining processes and helping my executives’ lives run smoothly.

During my downtime, I love to read, cook, and keep active. You can usually catch me running a 5K or half-marathon, playing basketball or softball, and playing master chef in the kitchen.

I have the distinct honor of wearing multiple marketing hats at Human Capital–primarily helping with strategy, operations, and messaging. This is my first experience in the venture world, and I’m pulling from my experiences in employer branding, recruitment marketing, and talent acquisition at Cruise and Salesforce.

I was born and raised in Illinois, traveled to the Rockies to study Sociology and Spanish at Colorado College (where I also played football), and eventually made my way to San Francisco. Outside of work, I surf, hike, golf, and visit dog parks with my senior bloodhound/lab-mix Griswold.

The people here may be the most passionate, intelligent, and engaged collection of human beings that I've come across. Everyone cares deeply about the work they're doing, and it's magnetic. Beyond that, the business model is intriguing, and my role feels like a tailor-made opportunity to leverage my experiences and interests, and ultimately maximize my impact.

When I was a little kiddo, my parents thought I would be a lawyer. I’m the oldest of 3 brothers and my dad is the most competitive person I’ve ever met, so my home had a lot of debating and pushback. Your perspective had to be dialed in. Disagreement was encouraged and winning was celebrated.

I joined the debate team in high school, where precision of language was incredibly important. After college, I worked at Deloitte for 5 years (instead of going to law school, as my parents had predicted). But I wrote a lot of memos–which are, in essence, arguments made as clearly and concisely as possible. I’d argue that accounting is closer to law than it is to math, since both are governed by regulatory compliance..Technical accountants interpret the guidance and Excel does the math.

At Human Capital, I’m the go-to person for everything related to finance. With over a decade in the industry, I feel incredibly well-suited for this space. My time at Deloitte was filled with VC clients, First Republic taught me to apply systems in the most strict regulatory environment in existence (banking), and at Earnest I learned how to take a small scrappy startup and transform it into the loan origination arm of Navient, the largest student loan servicer in the world.

A lot of people find accounting boring, and I can’t deny that it can be a grind. On the other hand, I think people need to be more pragmatic about their career paths.

This incredibly consequential question is often framed as “what do you want to do?”—full stop. The way I think this question should be framed more accurately is “what kind of job pays the bills, allows your unique personality to excel, and doesn’t cause you to go insane?”

People ask me how I stare at spreadsheets all day. I believe that, to be happy with a career in accounting, the ability—the tendency—to grind has to be in your blood.

On a related note, my dad is also an accountant.

In my school days, I loved playing sports, being creative, and studying math (until integration and derivatives).

I was so obsessed with outdoor sports that I would play them indoors. My younger brother and I played cricket indoors, which often led to replacing smashed bulbs and tube lights. It was the sort of engineering project no engineering college could have prepared me for.

Creativity helps me bridge the gap between programming and designing. On weekends, you might find me designing a poster or logo for a startup.

At Human Capital, I create and maintain systems that enable smooth internal operations, and I’m stoked to be part of an organization whose goal is to have a positive impact on the careers of so many engineers.

Joe Rogan Experience—specifically, his conversation with Naval Ravikant.

San Francisco has been my home for almost 20 years, but I’m still an East Coast girl at heart. I grew up in the suburbs of New Jersey within a rich array of ethnicities, religions, and cultures. Creativity of all kinds was encouraged and nurtured at home and in school. If I wasn’t drawing or painting, I had my nose in a book. My passions continued through college where I completed a double major in English and History and a minor in Art History at Rutgers University.

Upon moving to San Francisco, I accepted a role as an Executive Assistant at an art gallery. My intent was to learn the business and eventually open my own. It didn’t take long for me to learn that being an EA allowed me to indulge my creativity far more than owning an art gallery. My career trajectory took a new turn and I haven’t looked back.

My role at Human Capital is in support of our COO. Nurturing relationships, efficient problem-solving, and streamlining processes are my core responsibilities. I’m also happy to pitch in in any way to contribute to Human Capital’s success in a meaningful way.

Be kind. Treating everyone with kindness and empathy is something I always strive towards. Life is tough, taking the time to connect, build genuine relationships and communicate conscientiously has rewarded me with lasting professional relationships and career opportunities.

I was fortunate to be exposed to the hackathon scene very early in my life. Throughout high school, I spent my weekends traveling to different cities, building products, and meeting the sharpest problem solvers I’d ever met. I very quickly realized the power engineers hold in shaping the trajectory of the world through the products and services they build.

This realization inspired me to study computer science at Penn. There, I started a number of ventures, hoping to make my own dent in the universe. One of those businesses was an equity crowdfunding platform, aiming to bring startup investing to the masses. This gave me the opportunity to build an exciting consumer-facing fintech product, while also diving deep into the world of venture capital and working closely with brilliant entrepreneurs. After graduating, I joined McKinsey to help a variety of companies solve top-of-mind business issues, before ultimately leaving to build companies in the ecommerce and logistics-tech spaces.

Throughout my career, I’ve consistently leveraged technology to shake up the status quo. As an associate at Human Capital, I’m excited to scale this effort by advocating for long-term thinking and supporting amazing engineers solving difficult problems.

Growing up, I always excelled in math and science and thus gravitated towards those subjects. On a whim, I enrolled in a graphic design class in middle school. Surprisingly, this ended up being one of my favorite classes throughout all of grade school. This class is what likely piqued my interest in building and designing digital products, something I enjoy doing to this day.

I partner with our portfolio companies to build out high-functioning engineering teams. I love collaborating with engineers–we think, communicate and solve problems differently, and I value that perspective.

Before Human Capital, I was at a recruiting startup that partners with venture firms to build out the companies they invested in. Now in venture myself, it’s all come full circle!

Outside of work, you can find me walking over 13,000 steps a day, listening to podcasts, and exploring my neighborhood in Brooklyn across the myriad of coffee shops, restaurants, and parks.

The first class I stepped into was Organizational Behavior, which focuses on the impact of environmental, technological, and interpersonal relationships between individuals, teams, and organizations. I loved that I could combine the psychology of human behavior with how people interact to build high functioning teams. It was the first class I had ever taken that actually felt as though I could leverage those learnings outside of the classroom.

I take things apart. When I was a kid I was fascinated by remote control cars and how they worked. After a while I actually put some back together. When I started in college my first major was in game design, but in 2008 the economic sky started falling and I wanted to know why. I finished undergrad with a double major in economics and finance with a minor in accounting.

After college I found myself in operations departments doing reporting for hedge funds, UCITs, and venture capital. I also took a short stop working for prosecuting attorneys where I calculated the impact of financial fraud on some of the largest pension funds in the world.

In every role I excelled at breaking down processes and leveraging the available tools to reduce manual intervention. This allows for faster and more accurate results. Bill Gates once said “I will always choose a lazy person to do a difficult job, because a lazy person will find an easy way to do it.” I prefer the term efficient, but potato potato.

I live with my wife Michelle and my dog Twiggy in Downingtown, Pennsylvania. I start and finish my work days by walking Twiggy through the park that runs through our town.

At Human Capital I work with the operations team to produce and support the quarterly reporting on the investments side. I find ways to improve operations processes by reducing manual intervention and potential risk exposure.

I think the business model is amazing and the people are great. I believe the firm is in a position to bring great ideas to life and to nurture some that are already in existence. I can’t wait to see what comes next!

I blame my tinkering on an early infatuation with electricity and an unnerving curiosity about how everything worked. That led me to hacking Minecraft worlds, running my high school robotics team, building wrist-mounted flamethrowers, and eventually studying Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University.

But understanding and implementing algorithms, designing 3D models, and fabricating circuits is nothing without purpose. It was at university where I discovered my appreciation for interdisciplinary projects. I developed the hardware interface for an affordable genetic disease detection mechanism for a bioengineering research project, applied ML models on guest lists to better gauge revenue and retain churn rate for events I planned, and I ran my own automated delivery startup in the Middle East. I’m rarely bored, as long as I can keep learning new disciplines and apply my skills to them.

I love designing and building products to solve problems, then learning how to scale them to market as businesses. That’s why I do what I do now at Human Capital—as a Software Engineer at Human Capital, I get to help build the tools for our team, who then help our startups grow.

In 9th Grade, I had a horrible habit of never turning off the lights before bed. Instead of simply changing by (bad) habit, I started brainstorming my first circuit: a motor, battery, and a switch with a really long wire. I now have a voice-command through Alexa connected to a relay to control my lights, but as my first time engineering a solution, I thought my really long wire was ingenious.

In Filipino culture, there’s a tendency to refer to everyone, even non-blood related relatives, as family—as aunts, uncles, cousins, brothers, or sisters. We bond over shared meals and experiences. As a community, we’re stronger when we lend a helping hand.

What I do as office administrator at Human Capital is similar: I lend a hand wherever it’s needed to make sure the office runs smoothly and the company feels like a community—whether it’s managing vendor relationships, creating a comfortable work environment, or brainstorming ways to bring a human touch to our space.

Do something you enjoy and love! Having a captivating career can enhance dedication and enthusiasm towards your work.

My dad taught me to hustle and to always be helpful, while my mom taught me how to think creatively. These lessons have flowed into all aspects of my life.

After graduating from Wesleyan, I was a high school math teacher through Teach For America, then a management consultant at Oliver Wyman, then the Director of Strategy for Weld North Education. Along the way, I learned how to communicate, manage projects, and grow companies–while working with the most amazing people.

At Human Capital, I give our engineers, our portfolio companies, and our teams leverage so that they can do their jobs more efficiently and effectively. I do that by developing hypotheses and frameworks, quantifying strategic options, and assessing their efficacy in an organized, analytical fashion.

When I’m not working, I love finding and eating ice cream, lifting things up and putting them down repetitively, brainstorming startup ideas with friends, and traversing scenic terrains.

Growing up, I loved math because I was good at it. I was on the coolest team in high school— the math team, of course—where I got to tackle some pretty neat problems. But it wasn’t until college that I discovered the true beauty of the subject: articulating  arguments through logical proofs. With so many uncertainties in life, math gave certainty—and through that, beauty. Uncertainty isn’t bad, but sometimes, having something concrete is nice.

I grew up with a curiosity that led me to explore computers inside and out, but it was when I clicked ‘run’ and my script printed “Hello World” in high school that I really realized how much I love building. Whether that’s furniture, software applications, or legos–the process of building something from the ground up is immensely satisfying and motivational.

I started my career in software engineering at Amazon, where I learned how to function as a team player, build stable systems, and find joy in what I do.

At Human Capital, I’ve joined an amazing engineering team. We’re building a connection platform to empower our teams and our portfolio of founders and engineers to support the infrastructure of our entire business.

My mother started her game of life in “Difficult mode” from a remote and small village in China. With determination and hope, she came to the United States with language barriers and close to nothing. She single-handedly made my game of life “Easy mode” by allowing me to learn from an education system that worked in my favor and she guided me through uncertainties in life with unconditional love.

Raised in a small town in Northern California, I always knew I wanted to relocate to the Bay Area. Soon after I graduated with my B.S. in Human Development from the University of California, Davis, I made my way to the city and began a new career in executive support. I had some early exposure to venture capital and learned that I love being part of a team that supports entrepreneurship and innovation.

At Human Capital, I'm excited and inspired by the collaborative environment, compassionate teammates, and our creative, energetic founders. It’s satisfying to help things run smoothly, and I get to enjoy a diverse set of projects–often interesting and unpredictable ones. There is never a dull day, to say the least.

Outside of work, I enjoy binge watching my favorite tv shows, yoga, and self care. I love being outdoors–going on walks while listening to my favorite artists and podcasts.

After my first conversation with Human Capital, I knew that this was the company I wanted to be a part of. The culture was like nothing I had ever experienced before at a VC firm–grounded in principles that resonate with me. I find myself surrounded by a brilliant group of individuals who display a strong community of wisdom and empathy. This is an environment where I can fulfill my drive to make a difference for people.

Growing up, my parents provided me with a lot of freedom to explore my interests. Academically, I gravitated towards math and CS because I appreciated the process of building on top of fundamental concepts and tools to solve more complex problems. Outside of class, you’d typically find me in either the dance or taekwondo studio.

Looking back, I realize that all of these early interests were connected by the fact that committing to the craft means embarking on a continuous journey of learning and perfecting.

My love for learning has carried through to the present day. The Human Capital team shares my enthusiasm for the tech space, and more importantly, the passion to learn and build alongside founders who look to be pioneers in their domain.

My two all-time favorites are 1) The Ride of a Lifetime by Bob Iger for lessons on business, leadership, risk taking; and 2) When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi for lessons on life, learning, and purpose.

I partner closely with founders and their teams to help build talent systems and processes at scale. I love problem solving and working with others–sharing my experience and knowledge to set early-stage companies up for long-term success.

I grew up between the US and France, moved a lot, and quickly learned how to be flexible and adaptable to new environments—an indispensable skill in 2020, it turns out. Before joining Human Capital I spent time in talent functions at Dropbox and Apple, helping build and deliver best in class recruiting experiences for hiring teams and candidates globally.

I’m a helper by nature. I get energy helping others achieve their career goals–it’s extremely fulfilling and exciting! In my spare time, I enjoy taking walks with my dog while listening to a good podcast.

My English and History teachers in high school were both incredibly engaging. They knew how to get the best out of students–I was always excited to go to class with them! They taught me how to think differently, look at all sides in order to form an opinion, and utilize my strengths and knowledge. I’m forever grateful for their exceptional human skills.

Variety is the spice of life, and this rings true for me as an Operating Partner with Human Capital. I lead a team of brilliant Talent Consultants to help founders and their companies scale. Whether it's going from 3 to 6 within an autonomous vehicle company, or 50 to 100 within a healthcare tech organization, my goal is to connect engineers with the companies where they can have meaningful impact—both on their personal careers and on the businesses they help build.

It’s still all about the people, and building lifelong relationships is paramount. We aim to inform engineers of emerging disruptors, updates on our portfolio companies, and arm them with the knowledge they need to make informed decisions about their careers and futures.

Prior to joining Human Capital, I spent 8 years at Google and Uber, building large scale sourcing and recruiting functions of over 40+ employees across the most cutting edge technologies on the market. Whether it was Self Driving Cars, E-Bikes and Scooters, or Flying Cars, or any other innovative idea, our team helped match exciting businesses to great technical talent.

I like to think of myself as a jack of all trades— and I rarely say no to something new. I’ve done extra curricular activities ranging from extreme sports like solo skydiving, to more patient work like growing and maintaining an herb garden. Professionally, I enjoy doing the analytical and systems focused work that makes teams more efficient and effective.

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Be an expert in the things everyone else avoids. If this is a weakness for a large group of people, then it’s likely to be found across multiple organizations with similar functions. This creates a unique set of skills that can help advance your career quickly.

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As a Principal, I help founders build highly functioning teams. I love digging in to understand the innovative products and services developed by the incredible founders and their teams at our portfolio companies.

Previously, as the first recruiting hire at fintech startup Clear Street, I helped scale the company to over 250 people. I deeply value the connections I’ve made at Clear Street and throughout my career and look forward to expanding my network in my role at Human Capital.

In my spare time, I’m an amateur botanist and I enjoy keeping up with tech startup news.

“If someone is able to show me that what I think or do is not right, I will happily change, for I seek the truth, by which no one ever was truly harmed. Harmed is the person who continues in her self-deception and ignorance.”
-Marcus Aurelius

Upon moving to the Bay Area, it was hard not to notice tech companies altering the skyline, and it sparked a desire to get involved in something transformative. Recruiting was my foot in the door, but I thought it would just be a stepping stone back into sales. Or at least that was the plan…

I instantly fell in love with the aspect of connecting people to opportunity, but there’s a part of it that has never sat well–I’ve always felt an aversion toward introducing myself as a recruiter. The negative connotations of spamming, missing calls, going dark, hard closes, and slimy negotiation tactics are not who I am.

Throughout my career in recruiting I’ve strived to deliver a higher quality experience to both candidates and companies alike. To me, this is essential for building long-term relationships and healthy organizations. You simply can’t be reckless in this space and expect to attract, grow, and retain the talent to build a game changing company. This journey started at Google where I grew to lead technical and non-technical sourcing teams, continued at Shift during their Series A, and eventually at Plaid–where I led technical recruiting and recruiting operations to help them grow from 400 to over 1,000 employees.

As an Operating Partner at Human Capital, I get to walk alongside founders and recruiting teams–helping them instill healthy hiring practices and an authentic approach to talent acquisition. My team helps build tailored strategies fit for the stage of a company’s growth to discover, engage, and convert the talent that will bring their vision to life.

To almost nobody’s surprise, I started working at a bike shop when I was 14. I wanted the job so badly that my Mom told me to just go down and offer to sweep the floors and take out the trash. That got me an interview (and eventually an offer) for an above minimum wage job at a whopping $5.25/hr (not limited to sweeping and taking out the trash!). I got to build and sell bikes–my high school dream job, which reframed how I’ve looked at ‘work’ ever since. If you’re not having fun while doing it, what the hell are you doing? And yes, I think about how nice that industry discount would still be almost every day.

Charles Kettering once said: “I like thinking about the future, because the future is where I’m going to be spending the rest of my life.” At Human Capital, I get to do just that by backing founders who are building the future we’re all going to live in—from the first time entrepreneur looking to take the plunge to the serial founders building their third or fourth company.

I started my career in venture capital at Andreessen Horowitz before transitioning into operating roles, joining Qasar Younis & Peter Ludwig as the 10th employee at Applied Intuition after a detour doing my JD/MBA at Stanford.

I credit my initial obsession with people building the future to my years at the State Department & White House, where I was first exposed to some of the most mission driven people in the world.

In addition to working with visionary founders every day, thinking about the world my two kids will live in keeps me focused on that future.

You have to find something that is so obviously compelling and exciting to you that you just can’t believe that everyone in the world doesn’t want to do it too. If you’re going home every night and saying to yourself, “this is the coolest thing - why aren’t all of my friends quitting their jobs to do THIS,” then you’re probably onto something.

I built my recruiting foundation as a coordinator, which provided me with the organizational skills, attention to detail, and the sense of urgency that continue to serve me to this day. In the years that followed, I added experiences across a variety of roles in the recruiting space, both in-house and at agencies, and across the technology, financial services, and consumer goods industries.I completed my bachelors at UCSD and my post-grad at Insper in São Paulo.

I love meeting new people and learning about their perspectives and backgrounds. I’ve lived in Brazil, Canada, and Hong Kong–and I’m fluent in Cantonese and Portuguese.

Many of my best friends I met while living abroad, and the way our lives have connected is truly special to me.

My grandmother. She lost my grandfather when she was only 40 years old, and had 5 children under the age of 10. She worked extremely hard to provide for her family, and had to find creative solutions to keep everyone safe and healthy. Throughout the years, my grandma always focused on the wellbeing of her children and grandchildren—and the unconditional love that she showed me has shaped how I treat others.

I was instilled with the values of working hard and treating people with respect at an early age. From K-12, I maintained a perfect 4.0 GPA–not because I was the smartest–but I chose to work hard to finance my own college education. I wanted to take that burden off my parents. One of my proudest accomplishments is attending Virginia Tech, where I played Football (go Hokies!) on a full scholarship.

My dream was to play in the NFL, but after a knee injury that dream was cut short. Along the way, I learned that I love coaching, building plans, and executing those plans successfully–hence, my recruiting career was born!

Eight years ago, my wife and I drove from Charlotte, NC to Austin, TX. Neither of us had ever been to Austin, let alone Texas. I worked for Google for almost four years and helped to build out the Code Jam, TopCoder, Front End, and Mobile Channels recruiting teams. Most recently, I helped build the sourcing function for DBX that took the company through IPO and beyond.

I’ve had the opportunity to work with some of the brightest people in recruiting and I’m excited to continue learning and growing with the industry’s best here at Human Capital.

My life is dedicated to my beautiful wife, Priscilla, and our two girls,Penelope and Perry. Outside of the office, you can find us exploring the local ATX food and music scene, or somewhere outdoors with our 85 pound Aussiedoodle. They inspire me to be the best version of myself each and every day.

I’ve always been driven by a desire to build authentic, sustainable relationships with people. I believe that if you listen to others, treat them with respect, value their opinions—and share some good hearted humor—you can gain a relationship for life.

As a Senior Principal, I leverage my experience, skills, and interests to help our portfolio companies build high-functioning teams. Part of my role is bringing together exquisite talent with phenomenal startups, because at the end of the day, humans are at the heart of all successful companies. I’m proud to play a part in that equation.

Prior to joining Human Capital, I spent over eight years at Uber and Google helping build out a variety of talent functions across business groups—including Uber ATG. I’ve seen firsthand how pivotal the human aspect of talent is, both as a manager and individual contributor.

In my spare time, you may find me chasing our little one around the couch, smoking an epic brisket, or trying to brew the perfect cup in a V60.

The joy I see in our 18 month old toddler. Life moves rapidly and seeing the happiness a child has in simple things, like staring at a fish tank, is refreshing. She constantly reminds me how important it is to slow down and live in the moment.

I used to consider the law my first love. I was so enthusiastic about being an attorney that, at age twelve, I mapped my career trajectory from high school extracurriculars to partner. This should have tipped me off that my true love was operations. Instead, I pursued a legal career with zeal. First, working at Tesla as a legal assistant specializing in work-based immigration and contracts, then as a legal assistant specializing in intellectual property at both Fish & Richardson and Gilead Sciences.

After several years, I finally recognized my passion for operations. Shortly after that, I landed at 50+1 Strategies, a political consulting firm. There, I provided support to the firm and its clients, including, but not limited to general operations, recruitment, human resources, legal assistance, accounting, and cybersecurity.

In every experience, however, the relationships I built were always the most important to me. People are the heart of any role. That’s why I’m so thrilled to be at Human Capital. Not only do they share my belief that everything comes down to people, but I have the opportunity to help others find and follow their passion.

As the operational component of our engagements, I work across all recruiting-related functions to fill (not just plug) every gap I find. It’s my responsibility to keep the “car” running so seamlessly that no one even notices a tire change.

I read 3-4 simultaneously. I’m fascinated by history, psychology, and how the world works. I also enjoy a good science fiction or fantasy novel. Here are some of the few I’m currently reading:

• The Broken Earth series by N. K. Jemisin
• Prisoners of Geography by Tim Marshall
• Cadillac Desert by Marc Reisner
• Maybe You Should Talk to Someone by Lori Gottlieb

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I got my professional start working as the Executive Director of a small affordable housing non-profit. It was direct action in service to San Francisco residents, and I’ve endeavored to find ways to support my community ever since. Eventually I pivoted to financial services, working for two global banks, most recently as an assistant vice president in the technology space.

I believe that Human Capital, with its emphasis on developing people, employees and founders alike, is the perfect place for me to focus on the things that matter most—helping companies, their employees, and the communities they serve, to work more efficiently and effectively together. I’m especially delighted to be partnered with the People Ops team, a perfect opportunity to support the entire community.

These days I’m really into urban hiking—basically long walks, exploring the nooks and crannies of San Francisco and the greater Bay Area. It’s different from running or riding a bike because it requires you to slow down and really take in your surroundings. It's an opportunity for rediscovery and a little bit of self-discovery too!

As part of the Finance team, I keep the machine oiled. Most of what I do is on the tax side, but I cover other functions as well.

I’ve been working in the alternative investments industry for 18 years. Before joining Human Capital I spent time at a small fund administrator, followed by working in the asset management group at a global investment bank, and then a global public accounting firm. So I’ve seen it all.

I love solving problems, getting to the right answer, and learning new things—and tax definitely involves all of that.

I am married with four kids ranging from pre-K to college, so I’m in every stage of parenthood all at the same time.

My first field of study at the university was engineering, so I probably would have finished that. Some parts of accounting and engineering are the same and I would be good at both. I enjoy learning engineering concepts when I need a break from tax!

Compliance—it's not for everyone, but it is for me!

I’ve spent more than a decade in the legal and compliance departments of small/medium size commercial real estate investment firms, large private equity firms, and with companies ranging in AUM from a few million to over a billion as a consultant. In that time I’ve learned a thing or two about how to build compliance programs, implement their infrastructure, and create a culture of compliance. I’m excited to bring that experience to Human Capital.

All things metaverse. From token protocols to smart contracts to building a virtual art gallery on digital land to display NFTs, this space seemingly has no bounds. The creativity of those pioneering and engineering this new world is inspiring. They have truly embraced the “If you build it, they will come” mindset.

I love routine, structure, and solving problems. As a kid, it would only take me about a week of summer break before I drove my parents insane, bouncing off the walls without a set agenda. I still operate this way and can’t help but apply frameworks to everything I come into contact with.

The only thing that I value more than structure and solutions are the people around me—I recognize the paramount importance of a team and the bonds within.

At Human Capital, I manage legal functions and programs, interface with our Director of Legal, and provide support for the legal, investment, and people teams all across the board. I hope to grow my role in the firm for many endeavors to come.

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Lately, I’ve found inspiration in raising the fish in my new aquarium, weekend strolls through Golden Gate Park, deepening my knowledge of VC, and dismantling my roommates in FIFA. What inspires me tends to shift quickly, but these have stuck around for the past couple months.

I’ve always enjoyed thinking about history’s counterfactuals. What would our world look like if the industrial revolution had erupted 2,000 rather than 200 years ago?

The first steam engine was devised in 1st century CE Roman Egypt by a mathematician, Hero of Alexandria. Yet not until the 18th century did this technology, once rediscovered, find meaningful economic application. Had Hero only found the right contemporary collaborators, he could well have initiated the age of steam power in ancient Rome.

At Human Capital, I get to back a modern generation of Hero(e)s bringing new technologies and ideas to the world.

Before joining Human Capital, I invested in growth-stage startups at Invus Opportunities, a New York-based investment firm, and helped advise Fortune-500 companies at Mckinsey & Co. I also spent a fascinating year in Beijing studying as a Schwarzman Scholar.

Fiction: Seveneves, Cryptonomicon, and anything else by Neal Stephenson—some say that to glimpse the future one must read science fiction. Also, Professor Unrat by Heinreich Mann and The Secret Agent by Joseph Conrad.

Non-fiction: The Years of Lyndon Johnson by Robert Caro, Antifragile: Things that Gain from Disorder by Nassim Taleb, and The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt by Edmund Morris.

I've always wanted to find a connection to helping other people in what I do in life. I've found that in the service industry, as a tennis coach, tutoring middle schoolers, taking care of my grandmother, and then pursuing a degree in Healthcare Administration. Shortly after graduating, I realized the hospital life was not for me, though. Thankfully, a good friend suggested I move into talent acquisition and referred me into my first recruiting job.

I started out hiring engineers to help hospitals upgrade their electronic health records to be compliant with the Affordable Care Act's guidelines. I fell in love with connecting to people, helping connect them to the next step in their career, and helping build out companies. From there, I've been fortunate enough to work at Google, Facebook, and Robinhood. At the heart of all those companies are engineers building amazing products, solving complex problems, and providing products that millions and billions of people use regularly.

As a Senior Principal at Human Capital, I'm excited to partner with our portfolio companies to help enable them to build products, services, solutions, or the next ground-breaking technology that ultimately helps others! I'm very grateful for the path that life has presented me and am excited to use my experience to pay it forward and help our portfolio companies.

Philosophy changed my life. It taught me to challenge my thoughts, find different ways to look at situations, and to understand that perception may or may not be reality. I like to think having that mindset can really help you understand where someone is coming from, build relationships, and challenge your assumptions.

Like most people in the industry, I fell into recruiting. As a child, I always gravitated towards interacting with people and acts of service. From operating the front counter at my father's hardware store to spending summers in college traveling to Ecuador to volunteer, I became energized through helping people.

My career started at LivingSocial, where I experienced firsthand the art of 'fail fast' and helped grow the company to over 5,000 people at its peak. It prepared me for the enormous growth that was taking place at Uber, where I spent over five years building out their operations teams from the ground up. Not only did I get to develop my skills there, but I also met some of the most amazing and intelligent people along the way.

I learned that the more I pushed myself outside of my comfort zone, the more I'd continue to learn and grow personally and professionally, and that was something that became a north star for me in anything I do.

At Human Capital, I'm working alongside our teams to help identify and attract some of the best talent in the market so we can continue to do what we do best—build relationships and unlock potential.

I'm incredibly lucky and grateful to have some fantastic mentors. One taught me that the only person who can hold me back is myself—which helped me overcome some of the barriers I had unknowingly created.

My journey started as an academic counselor for freshman in the College of Engineering at Boston University. I was passionate about the programs and support models (both personal and academic) we provided to the students. My transition into recruiting felt natural as I was able to continue to evolve relationships and have impact on both candidate and business goals and advancement.

My introduction to tech started at Salesforce when the company was just 4,000 employees. Starting as a recruiter, I transitioned into management eventually leading the Infrastructure Engineering and Security hiring. These technical hires were critical to the product foundation as Salesforce scaled to 75,000 employees. I continued on to Grand Rounds to lead the Talent Acquisition team, which involved building out and scaling this mission-driven organization. Most recently, I led the Tableau Global Recruiting team through a critical time of growth and transition following their acquisition.

My role as an Operating Partner at Human Capital gives me the opportunity to partner with founders and their leaders to set up infrastructure and scale their teams. By understanding their most critical needs in the various stages of growth we can create a strategy for a path forward.

Outside of the office you can find me skiing, hiking, wine tasting and spending time with family and friends on the east coast.

The last book I read (of course!) was Secrets of Sand Hill Road by Scott Kupor. Other favorites include The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah, The Paper Palace by Miranda Cowley Heller and Orphan Train by Christina Baker Kline.

I believe that everything happens for a reason. I was fortunate enough to graduate during one of the toughest economic downturns of my generation. Hitting a brick wall right after college forced me to drop all expectations and pursue paths I didn’t know existed. As fate would have it, I was launched into an international career of executive search and talent acquisition over the next 12 years. Splitting my time between Southeast Asia, New York, and San Francisco, I found myself most comfortable working in multi-cultural and ambiguous environments within hyper-growth startups during their most dramatic inflection points. Today I continue to leverage my passion for connecting with people and finding the best way to help companies achieve their goals.

When I’m not in the office, you can find me competing in amateur golf tournaments or studying flight schedules, fare codes, and analyzing algorithms to maximize potential on frequent flier miles.

At the early age of 6, my dad started teaching me the game of golf. When I turned 12, he brought me into his weekly competitive group and told me he would stake my bets. If I lost, he would cover my losses and I would make it back up through chores, but if I won, I got to keep the money. I quickly realized this was my main source of income and my game determined whether or not I was going out with my friends later in the week. Little did I know, this arrangement was a life-long lesson teaching me the discipline to focus on every shot and never give up. Looking back at it now, the game taught me compassion, humility, grit, the value of a dollar, and to never give up.

I’ve worked in a relatively broad range of environments over the course of my career, but two things remain consistent across my experiences: I gravitate toward the People space, and data is at the core of both my work and decision-making process.

After several years in management consulting, I found my way to Uber where I focused on recruiting analytics, data infrastructure, and broader people analytics. Most recently, I led a Workforce Strategy team at Facebook/Meta—where the size of the organization roughly tripled over just a few years—supporting recruiting, managing headcount and workforce planning, establishing recruiting and HR analytics, working on systems and automation, and implementing flexible and remote work strategies.

Outside of work, you can find me hanging out with my partner Wil, our two dogs, Helen and Hugo, picking up new hobbies (most recently, woodworking), or taking on projects around the house.

My first job was as a waiter and a sushi chef at Japanese restaurants. I worked part-time at a few places while in high school, and it was a great opportunity to practice my (since lost) Japanese-speaking abilities!

I've always had a passion for computers and technology. It started as my family’s dedicated tech support — a title I still hold today. In the beginning, my secret technique to fix the household computer was to punch the monitor until the mouse unfroze, and although my methods were unconventional, it worked most of the time. Those early skills were the seed from which my career in tech has grown.
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My role at Human Capital is to leverage technology in developing our internal tools and tech infrastructure — and ultimately support my colleagues and enable them to perform their work at the highest level.

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Outside of work, I enjoy playing basketball and working on small technical projects where I can explore new concepts or add convenience to my daily life.

During high school I designed a system to power a computer workstation solely on solar. I received help from Mr. Ata Azmi Qasem who mentored me during that process. I learned to assemble my first PC, and work on circuits that have more than a tiny lightbulb and a double A battery.

I’m motivated by causes that benefit people, and I’ve always strived to make a positive impact on the world by any means — programming just happened to be one of them. There’s a lot to consider in creating a new viable product, but striking a balance between ethics and usability is paramount to me.

I grew up in the Bay Area, where I gained an early exposure to the implications of programming. My engineering journey began as a 14 year old at a hackathon where I was the youngest by at least a decade. I went into that fateful first night with zero experience, but came away with a deeper understanding of how a few lines of code could impact millions of lives — and the rudimentary HTML/CSS website I built as well. Since that experience, I’ve been improving my craft by building things that interest me, from facial recognition door locks to NFT heatmaps.

I’ve been fortunate enough to find my way to Human Capital, where I’m responsible for a broad range of technical responsibilities. To me, the greatest aspect of working here is the collection of incredible people I get to work with! Iron sharpens iron, and there’s no better example of this than our team, where everybody is impressive and engaged. Learning something new daily is key, so what better way to increase one’s positive impact than to learn from a diverse variety of perspectives?

I’m a big fan of consistent habits, as they allow me to keep track of progress in pursuit of greatness. Some of my habits include working out, distance running, practicing mindfulness, listening to podcasts, and gardening!

I’m a small town American kid that grew up in the cornfields of Illinois and the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia. I was the first person in my family to ever own a passport, and now I’ve lived in four different countries. I currently live in the most diverse city in the world — Toronto!

Before jumping into the startup world, I worked at Capital One Labs — where I learned how fulfilling it can be to operate as an embedded technical recruiter, and also that a small, scrappy team can make an outsized impact on a business.

I’ve gone on to be the first full-time recruiter for a few different startups, and even had the privilege of riding one of those experiences through an IPO. I’m now hooked on working with early-stage companies and founders to build foundational teams!

I’m a proud husband and dad. Outside of work, you can find me traveling with my family or chasing my toddler and dog around the yard.

I live by the motto “always put people first!” I believe great products and companies are made possible by hiring and retaining incredible talent. Human Capital’s mission and focus on people aligns perfectly with my personal and professional beliefs.

As the daughter of an officer in the U.S. Navy, I grew up moving around the country and the world. This upbringing instilled a love of both new challenges and people, which is an attitude I bring to Human Capital every day.

I’ve had the privilege of advising founders since my time as a student at Yale Law, where I joined the Entrepreneurship and Innovation Clinic. I was inspired by the work my startup clients were doing to make the world a better place, and relished the opportunity to serve as a trusted advisor to them throughout their growth. I knew I wanted to continue to work with founders and went straight to Cooley, where I was able to guide dozens of startups through their formation, the novel legal issues that come up every day while breaking barriers, and some exciting exits. I feel fortunate to continue this journey as a lawyer at Human Capital.

I love bringing people together both inside and outside of work. In my free time you’ll find me throwing dinner parties, playing team sports, and traveling with groups of friends!

My law school commencement speaker emphasized the importance of connecting as opposed to networking. So much emphasis is placed on building a network of weak ties to lead you to the next career opportunity. While that’s important, our deeper relationships — nurtured over many years and developed through genuine connections — are what push us to grow in the workplace and contribute to the world.