Working as a Product Manager in Drug Development was an uneventful occupation in 2018.
I noticed that the culture, incentives, hierarchy, and societal expectations of gender roles disincentivize women professionals from persisting in the organization. I was no different. In 2019, I received an offer at <_X> to lead product development for a pediatric care product.
<_X> had an entrepreneurial approach to policies. I utilized the opportunity and worked with three senior women managers to start the Women in Healthcare initiative.
We established a research project to study ..
Algorithms mixed our tribal instincts with our desire to seek distraction. The combination with companies’ incentive to monetize the maxim – higher viewing time equals a higher likelihood of purchase led to the creation of information bubbles.
Influencers on both sides of the political aisle exist in silos breaking down decades of bipartisanship that was the cornerstone of a vibrant democracy.
I saw biases accentuated by algorithms even in 2016 while assisting the college admissions team. We pushed for greater representation of US minorities, second-generation immigrants, and international minorities in our admissions ...
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My parents had unlimited resources for storybooks. Toys and Candies – not so much.
We grew up in a household where education won over other demands to our attention.
Stories were essential to building our vocabulary.
My career as a Marketing Manager and my sister's as an author arose from our parents’ early intervention. Our friends were not so lucky. Many lost ..
When my father oriented us brothers to be analytically minded, I rebelled and drifted to painting and music. Then, the choice for a career came. I followed the proven path in Engineering. Even through the compromise, I immersed myself in music, drama, and arts in college. While teaching financially insecure students through <x> - I saw the potential of vivid imagery to create new pathways to learning math and science.
My desire to teach and create led me to ..
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My parents barely had any education. I was born when they were working as assistants in Delis, making $5/hour. Their American dream – a restaurant, failed to get them out of middle-income trap. From that time, my father talked about investing in restaurants.
A BA in Music was an escape from the hospitality industry.
I taught music for underserved children in Brooklyn through <X>, innovated with tempo, and saw the music elevate the mood of distressed children.
Last year, my album – Y, earned 50,000 downloads, but a sad truth faces the new artists: streaming services democratized music but limited the reach of artists.
Hosting shows and live music in expensive venues offer the best ROI, but the upfront cost is too high for most artists..
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For my first project as a team lead, I noticed that <X> was consistently behind the timeline. This came as a shock. She was a star performer in our AI investment niche since she pivoted from technology to our VC team. Her strategies to find industries with the highest probability of integrating AI helped us prioritize investing in entrepreneurs serving these industries.
To empower X to her former best self, I tried all the classic task management strategies and even guaranteed her position even ..
After six months of working on one of the toughest machine-learning projects and three postponements, my teammates from South Africa, China, and India finally joined me in DC.
The final phase of our project required rigorous testing as the FinTech product served the most vulnerable in society who couldn’t afford to risk their savings to security breaches.
A senior developer in the team who was known for making off-color remarks began sharing typecasting comments about our Chinese peer. Initially, ..
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While working for the <X> M&A deal, I worked with consultants, investment banking associates, lawyers, and accounting persons for both the client and our internal team. Among the 15, a junior colleague stood out for his earnestness.
Although our culture was collaborative, the high transactional value of the deal forced everyone to work in silos, engaging with others only when clarification was required. This put tremendous pressure on the Junior Analyst...
Motivating a team of 20+ sales associates and 5 team leads requires a coach’s mindset—firm with targets but empathetic to the challenges they face in closing a sale.
One team lead had a spotless career for 7 years, but the company’s position in the market was shaky after an insurance aggregator prioritized paid partners. Eager to give the company the push it needed, the team lead took a shortcut – instead of informing the customers of the renewal terms, he retroactively updated the terms. The complaints began to rise the week following the renewals.
With a zero-tolerance policy on errors in disclosure, the senior manager let ..
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Building a brand online and developing a loyal following in a niche was a winner-takes-it-all game.
Like in markets, two brands emerged, and so did I and my competitor Y in the editing for the educational video niche.
At the peak of my creative exuberance, I was publishing three videos a day. The smaller competitors with better content but lower volume were buried in the complexity of the YouTube Algorithm. An acquaintance I met during the YouTube Creator workshop was competing in the same space. He emailed his struggle with depression. Although I had created a persona as a strong sounding board, I, too, was internally struggling ..
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