Stanford University Graduate School of Business

Stanford University Graduate School of Education

Yale University

Driving Social Justice through Entrepreneurship

Lead radical wellness company with the mission to make wellness accessible to everyone, zenitjournals.com. 

Innovated method for increasing accessibility of the mental health benefits of journaling by developing menu of wellness-centered prompts and building custom website that enables customers to customize the prompts in their journals.  

Advanced employee wellness and DEIB goals of numerous organizations by developing and delivering workshops on using journaling to support employee wellness, foster team bonding, and cultivate inclusive cultures. Clients span high-technology, professional services, K12 and higher education, mental health advocacy, scientific research, public policy, public libraries, and domestic violence and sexual assault prevention. 

Co-created Racial Healing Journals with racial equity practitioners that were integrated into racial equity strategies of K12 and higher education organizations. 

Increased revenues by 4x from 2020 to 2023 while receiving 100% five-star reviews and consistent testimonials that Zenit has made journaling accessible and helped customers with their well-being.

Built thought leadership in building cultures of wellness. Invited to present on mental wellness and journaling at 2023 National Council for Wellbeing All-Staff Retreat, 2023 DC Startup Week, 2022 Dell Tech World Conference, and 2021 UConn Health Disparities Institute State of Health Equity among Boys and Men of Color Summit. 

Featured in publications including SWAAY and Influencive as well as on podcasts including Children's Mental Health Network, The Optimistic Advocate podcast, Women-Owned Wednesday podcast, and Empowered Working Mom Revolution.

Zenit

Founder & Chief Executive Officer

Designed, built, and tested strategies to mitigate misinformation and disinformation campaigns and other threats to 2020 Census participation to support a full and accurate 2020 Census count.

Select Accomplishments
•	Developed end-to-end system and standard operating procedures adopted and implemented by Census Bureau Associate Directorate of Communications (ADCOM) to mitigate risks created by misinformation and disinformation campaigns against the Census Bureau.
•	Improved the Bureau’s ability to detect and rapidly respond to threats targeting hard-to-count communities by designing information-sharing system with national civil society Census partners.

Contractor of Deloitte through The Goal

Senior Stakeholder Engagement Consultant

Set company mission, vision, and strategy to launch and build MindRight, Inc, a 501c3 tech nonprofit providing daily mental health coaching to youth over text message, which, after my departure, was spun off as for-profit entity, MindRight Health, https://www.mindright.io. Led operations, talent management, early stage product management, and coach recruitment and training. Built coach training and impact evaluation systems.

Select Accomplishments:
• Enabled product and program launch in first six months by leading development of coaching model and texting web application with engineering, clinical, and youth advisors. 
• Secured partnerships with schools and nonprofits to pilot texting service to 100 students in first year of launch, yielding improvement in ability to manage stress among 97% of users.
• Recruited, hired, and trained team of staff who represent the communities MindRight serves  in first two years, including Lead Developer, Head of Student Wellness, Head of Engineering, community and youth advisors, and licensed mental health clinicians. 
• Recruited and trained over 100 volunteer coaches in three years, with 80% retention rate, to support growth in serving over 600 students.
• Created critical company assets that were adopted in successor for-profit entity, MindRight Health, created in the few months after departure.

2018 AT&T Aspire Accelerator Fellow
2018 Legacy Lab New Legacy Makers' Showcase Award
2017 Fast Forward Accelerator Fellow
2017 Halcyon Fellow
2016 UPenn Milken Education Business Plan Competition winner
2016 4.0 Schools Tiny Fellowship Fellow
2016 Stanford GSB Frances and Arjay Miller Social Innovation Fellowship winner

MindRight Foundation

Co-Founder & Chief Operations Officer

Served as instructional aide to a 3rd grade class; provided one-on-one and small groups academic and socioemotional support; designed training tools and strategy for effective integration of instructional aides into the classroom.

Roses in Concrete Community School

MA Education Intern

Designed new talent management system used to determine compensation for non-instructional positions. Benchmarked pay scales to set competitive salaries tied to job responsibilities.

Select Accomplishments:
• Job classification system adopted by Human Resources Director and Chief Technology Officer. 
• Improved alignment between new positions and organizational needs by creating new job requisition process implemented by HR Director.

Education Pioneers

Education Pioneers Graduate School Fellow

Led production of 2015 and 2016 DC Education Compensation Studies for education talent strategy consulting firm. Designed survey and collected and cleaned compensation, benefits, and employee data. Ran statistical models to identify key trends to inform decision-making in budgeting and employee value proposition.

Select Accomplishments:
• Findings supported budgeting and compensation decisions for 24 charter management organizations (CMOs) in Washington, DC in 2015 and 32 CMOs and 18 education nonprofits in 2016.
• Presented at 2016 education sector talent strategy conference convening ~50 administrators.

EdFuel

Project Lead, 2015 & 2016 DC Education Compensation Benchmarking Studies

Led talent strategy and managed execution of internal growth strategy of economic consulting firm providing expert analysis to technology and telecommunications clients in antitrust and intellectual property matters. Managed client cases. Onboarded and trained all staff. Directly supervised 18 staff and contractors.

Select Accomplishments:
• Oversaw company growth from six to 18 staff over one year while improving quality of work product and client service.
• Increased consultant retention rate from 33% to 86% in two years. Designed and implemented performance and retention strategy. Created career paths, performance reviews, and post-project feedback sessions. 
• Increased efficiency by creating standardized report production workflows and quality control plan.
• Saved global telecom client over $1 billion in patent-licensing dispute by delivering expert testimony countering damages claims. Led project team and liaised with client’s legal counsel.

Criterion Economics, L.L.C.

Vice President

Directed 18 client projects, managing teams of three to 10 consultants. Delivered expert reports, including policy analysis and economic modeling of legal damages. Mentored and trained direct reports.

Select Accomplishments:
• Shaped telecommunications legislation in Bermuda by producing expert reports analyzing economic impacts of proposed legislation. Analyses used in submissions to government by national telecom client.
• Saved firm $250,000 worth of billable hour time per year. Restructured internal copyediting process for Journal of Competition Law and Economics, edited by Chairman and sponsored by firm.

Project Manager

Conducted quantitative, economic, and legal research and analysis to produce expert testimony for clients in antitrust and intellectual property matters. Drafted sections of reports filed in court records. 

Select Accomplishments:
• Reduced client payout from $20 million to $1 million by producing damages rebuttal report used in cross examination. Critiqued plaintiff’s assumptions, methodology, and calculation of damages.
• Produced competitive analysis used by AT&T in advocacy efforts advancing Net Neutrality debate.

Alina Liao