In 2022 I was elected to the Midcoast Community Council- essentially the city council for the unincorporated area that I live in. It includes the communities of Montara, Moss Beach, El Granada, Princeton, and Miramar. My broad goal is to be an effective representative for the people of the coastside, which means working to build more relationships with local, county, and state governments, and working to get the people of the coastside more engaged in the issues we face as a community.
Right now I’m pursuing projects relating to mental health in our local Asian-Pacific Islander community (given the horrific mass shooting event we had here in January), creating more possibilities in education for our kids here on the coastside, and improving our transportation system.
With regard to transportation specifically, I also sit on the San Mateo County Transportation Authority’s Citizen Advisory Committee, where I give voice to citizens’ concerns about county and Bay Area transportation projects. As the only member of the council who lives on the coastside, I’m uniquely positioned to provide the coastside’s perspective on these issues; the coastside has some unique challenges around transportation given our relatively remote location and low population density.
I joined Advantage Testing in New York City in 2003. After four years of working full-time as a tutor, I was asked to move to the Bay Area to found our business here. I moved to California in August of 2007, and settled immediately on the coastside, where I have been ever since. In the 16 years since I first arrived in California, I have built our Bay Area business into a 7-figure revenue operation, and I have also expanded us into Portland, Seattle, San Diego, Denver, Chicago, Minneapolis, St. Louis, Dallas, New Orleans, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, and Charlotte.
I’ve been successful in building our business because education is my passion and because I’ve worked hard to build a talented team, create the tools and processes to support them, and focus on the needs and aspirations of the families we work with. But I firmly believe that it’s not enough to do well- you also have to do good. Part of why I’ve spent 20 years at Advantage Testing is that we are committed as an organization to expanding educational opportunities for underserved communities; our foundation does groundbreaking work despite our relatively small size as an organization. For example, our Math Prize for Girls contest is the world’s largest math competition for girls.
Locally, we have a partnership of over a decade with Mission Graduates, providing them with pro bono test preparation and writing skills development classes. Down on the peninsula, we work with individual families in the Peninsula Bridge program to provide them pay-what-you-can tutoring support.
I joined Capital One in July 2001. I specialized in applying advanced mathematical models to forecasting and in building internal tools and models to make the company’s operations more efficient. I’d only been there for a few weeks when 9/11 happened; a few days after that was the 9/11 benefit concert. Capital One shut down its call center operations for its own business for a day so we could take the donation calls for the 9/11 fund that came from the benefit concert. I volunteered for a shift and spent several hours talking to Americans from around the country who just wanted to do anything they could to help. It was a powerful reminder that despite all our divisions, when push comes to shove we are all still Americans.
I joined marchFIRST in early 2000, before I graduated from business school, but I didn’t start until October 2000. Sadly, I only got to work on one project before I got dot-bombed and the company began its death spiral. But I learned a lot in the time I was there, and that knowledge helped me be successful at Capital One and beyond.
I attended the Yale School of Management from 1998-2000, graduating with a concentration in international strategy. I was drawn to Yale SOM’s commitment to a 3-sector approach to a business education: that being successful in business meant having a deep understanding not just of the private sector, but also the public sector and the nonprofit sector. I made that part of my education: I took far more than the required number of courses, did a public sector internship in the Satellite and Radiotelecommunications division of the FCC, and worked on a project team in our pro bono nonprofit consulting group, helping the Shoreline Alliance for the Arts with their strategic planning.
I attended Pomona College from 1990-1994, graduating with degrees in Physics and Mathematics. I also narrowly missed a degree in Russian (21-year-old me didn’t feel like writing a 50-page paper in Russian), and a degree in Dance (21-year-old me didn’t want to take the 2 required theater classes given everything else I was doing). I danced over 30 hours a week, and I also worked four part-time jobs (as a math TA, a physics TA, a private tutor of math and physics for local high school students, and in the student center) because I had to earn my own spending money. I was only able to attend Pomona because of a significant financial aid package that included both scholarships and loans. Pomona was (and still is!) a magical place, and I am deeply grateful that I had the opportunity to go there for college.