The Wharton School

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Sunset High School

People Ops & Special Projects @ ScaleAI  -  Wharton ’21 (MBA), MIT ‘13, ex-Bain

Owned strategic people projects and built new programs to accelerate the development of Scaliens, multiply the impact of each employee, and reduce voluntary attrition. Example projects:
- Designed and executed multiple iterations of the company-wide review cycle, collaborating with C-suite leaders to consider tradeoffs and implement changes to fit the needs of the business as the company grew from ~400 to ~700 employees (e.g. experimenting with frequency of feedback, delivery methods, rating systems, promotion criteria, performance distributions/curves, etc)
- Owned compensation end-to-end at Scale, including refreshing compensation bands using external benchmarks, updating the compensation philosophy as we expanded into new geographies, and executing semi-annual compensation cycle for all corporate employees
- Drove process efficiency and data integrity improvements by partnering closely with cross-functional stakeholders in HR Operations, Recruiting, and Finance to pinpoint gaps in existing processes and automate workflows to reduce errors and increase scalability
- Spearheaded employee engagement efforts through weekly and annual surveys to collect feedback directly from employees and identify highest-impact opportunities for the People team

In addition to project work:
- Served as HR Business Partner to Public Sector (Federal), Business Operations, Analytics, and Enterprise AI teams, meeting weekly with stakeholders to proactively flag employee issues, manage performance concerns, and enable success against team OKRs

Scale AI

Manager, People Ops and Special Projects

•	Championed strategic planning and pioneered OKRs for the People Ops team, resulting in a vision of best-in-class People Ops and clear priorities with owners for short- and long-term goals that were shared with the full company for accountability
•	Improved mid-year reviews by 1) piloting role-specific performance matrices that generated relevant, actionable feedback for the Product team and 2) conducting analysis on manager and peer ratings to identify biases and calibrate across individuals
•	Designed career paths and levels for Engineering team in close collaboration with the CTO and developed repeatable processes to expand to other functions within the company (Go-To-Market, People Ops, Product)

RapidSOS

People Operations MBA Intern

Quarterly Leadership Award Recipient – nominated by VP Finance for exceptional cross-function collaboration and company value of “Attacking the Problem”

“Valerie was instrumental in formalizing a recurring process that ensures trade-offs are clearly and consciously agreed to by Execs, Finance, and Growth.  The accuracy and certainty was significantly improved by Valerie, creating more confidence in discussions with the Board and investors on our ad spend and ROAS (our biggest cost outside of payroll by far and a big point of interest for investors).”

Apartment List

Manager, Growth Analytics

Apartment List believes every renter deserves a home they love. We make the apartment search easy by creating a curated experience for each renter, searching thousands of listings to match renters with the properties that best suit their preferences, and guiding them through the rental journey.

•	Drove renter acquisition efforts by estimating user lifetime value across channels and optimizing allocation of $25M+ annual performance marketing budget across search, social, and app-install campaigns to maximize company revenue
•	Spearheaded growth of the two most valuable acquisition channels, resulting in 50% increase in new users Y/Y
•	Collaborated with cross-functional teams on strategic projects to uncover previously untapped sources of value and unlock areas for future growth on both sides of the rentals marketplace

Senior Associate, Growth Analytics

Completed a 6-month externship reporting into the Vice President of Marketing for NFL Network and NFL Media.  Primary project focused on increasing viewership of the 2017 NFL Draft on the NFL Digital properties (NFL Network, NFL Mobile, NFL.com) and was successful across several metrics:
- Most-watched Draft on TV ever for NFL Network and Digital owned & operated properties, with double-digit YOY growth on all platforms (+18% on NFL Network, +30% on Digital Media)
- Increased share of viewership (compared to ESPN) from 30% of all US HHs in 2016 to 33% in 2017

Specific responsibilities and achievements over the 6-months were:
- Oversaw end-to-end marketing efforts around the 2017 NFL Draft, from developing a strategy to briefing key stakeholders to coordinating across internal and external partners to executing plans and sharing results with NFL leadership
- Managed $1.4M budget spanning multiple channels (e.g. social, display, email) and agencies (e.g. creative agencies, media buying agencies)
- Established new norms within the Digital Marketing team and shared applicable learnings with other managers to help replicate success of the Draft in NFL subscription and digital products

National Football League (NFL)

Associate Manager

Promotion to Senior Associate Consultant results in increased responsibility on case teams across multiple dimensions (e.g. problem solving, client results, and extraordinary teams) as well as increased involvement in activities beyond client-facing work (e.g. mentorship, recruiting).

Select projects included:

Supply chain transformation for a global food CPG company:
- Led a workstream focused on driving 5-8% savings off a $2B+ spend base on raw materials and packaging.  This included developing a factbase of current procurement spend, brainstorming with various client stakeholders, refining ideas for savings, estimating size of the prize, and prioritizing opportunities for execution to achieve over $50-100M by the end of 2018
- Explored opportunities to optimize the network, minimizing capital outlay while creating capacity for growth in key products or segments of the business
- Developed leadership style by managing a first-year Associate Consultant and a second-year Associate Consultant while reporting to a Principal. This required balancing workstream needs and managing both up and down to provide leverage to the Principal and support to the Associate Consultants.  It also required adapting the supervising approach, managing goals and expectations, and delivering feedback relevant to each individual's current professional development needs.

Growth strategy for a corporate sustainability nonprofit:
- Conducted market landscape research to understand key competitors' differentiated products and identify potential whitespace
- Supervised and mentored a first-year Associate Consultant, managing workload for the team
- Presented findings to leadership, including the President of the organization and select Board members, to get buy-in on 5-year growth plan and implementation approach

Bain & Company

Senior Associate Consultant

- Led full-time and internship pre-MBA recruiting for MIT across all North American offices
- Collaborated with internal recruiting team to plan events, drive awareness, and build the Bain brand on MIT campus
- Represented Bain as an ambassador at events to network with students and answer questions from potential applicants
- Reviewed applications, facilitated discussions, and conducted interviews to select the most qualified candidates in a highly competitive applicant pool (<2% of applicants receive offers)
- Supported selling process to convince offerees to accept and join the company

Recruiting School Team Lead (MIT)

Co-led a team of 6 consultants to develop consumer and corporate pricing strategies for ArtLifting, an online art marketplace for homeless, disabled and other disadvantaged people to sell their artwork.

Inspire Inc.

Case Team Leader

Developed solutions to help corporate clients in a diverse range of industries solve business problems.  Selected case experiences included below:

Med Tech Co: Cost transformation project focused on indirect spend and procurement
- Designed methodology for and executed quantification of ~$180M savings in collaboration with key individuals within client's procurement organization
- Analyzed client's travel and real estate spend in-depth to develop achievable recommendations for cost reduction
- Developed an Excel tool to consolidate key details about each opportunity, e.g. level of difficulty, estimated lead time, and resources required to achieve savings
- Created an Excel tracking tool to measure progress toward program goal across all initiatives, divided by company divisions to hold stakeholders accountable for savings targets

Retail Co: Revamp of overall customer experience to create a customer-centric culture, targeting domestic call center customer service interactions
- Designed and executed a one-month prototype during retail's busiest season to improve overall customer satisfaction
- Documented best practices in detailed transition notes to enable expansion of the prototype to additional call centers

Private Equity Group (5 projects): conducted due diligence for private equity and hedge fund clients across a variety of industries including retail, industrial goods, consumer goods, and software
- Led primary research workstream: identified and interviewed industry experts to understand market trends, competitive landscape, and growth potential
- Designed and analyzed customer surveys
- Spearheaded secondary research efforts by leveraging analyst reports, trade journals, IRI POS data, and industry publications
- Built bottoms-up and top-down revenue projection models to triangulate realistic top-line growth potential and compare to management forecasts
- Managed teams of temporary employees to assist with web-scraping tasks and customer outreach

Associate Consultant

Led business development and revenue generation for Preen.Me, a next generation consumer marketing platform that utilizes its army of 10,000+ beauty and lifestyle influencers to turn customers into brand storytellers.  Embraced additional responsibilities to maintain seamless transition and continued client support when her direct supervisor (VP Brand Relations) was on maternity leave.

- Managed relationships with existing partners and active campaigns as well as a pipeline of 20+ potential clients and projects at any given time
- Exceeded client expectations of high-quality, curated content and massive social engagement through daily collaboration with the CEO to align on achievable project goals and identify roadblocks and solutions
- Supervised teams of 5-10 individuals split across Israel and the Philippines to ensure that active social media campaigns delivered hundreds of pieces of user-created content (e.g. photos, videos)
- Trained and mentored new team members to understand individuals' strengths, weaknesses, and professional goals
- Reviewed team roles and performance with the COO, making recommendations on how to leverage employees' skills effectively and run the business efficiently while maintaining office morale and motivation

Preen.Me

Director of Brand Partnerships

Identified and pursued strategic partnerships and brand collaborations for Preen.Me, the world's leading social beauty platform.

- Created and delivered presentations introducing Preen.Me to major beauty brands and digital agencies, highlighting potential partnership opportunities to support their activities
- Developed innovative social engagement programs for clients to amplify and expand their online and social media presence among target consumers and beauty addicts
- Supervised multiple campaigns for brand partners like Laura Geller Beauty, Lancôme, and Sally Hansen to create massive social engagement surrounding new product launches
- Analyzed relevant KPI data to generate comprehensive campaign reports throughout the programs and summarize key learnings

Business Development

Worked alongside a team of six people to evaluate the organization structure, assess areas for strategic and performance improvement, and facilitate an organization redesign for the client.

- Analyzed client headcount data to identify $20-30M in savings opportunities
- Evaluated one of the client's internal business units to determine its long-term profitability
- Researched RIF processes and restructuring guidelines to verify savings opportunities and insure fair severance packages where applicable
- Developed a communication plan that mapped out a top-down cascade of important internal messages
- Prepared clear presentations for monthly updates to client senior management

Associate Consultant Intern

Member of the teaching staff for Introduction to Solid-State Chemistry (3.091), one of three classes that satisfy the Chemistry General Institute Requirement at MIT, with typical enrollment between 350-400 students each semester.

- Created lesson plans and taught two recitations each week to 20 undergraduate students to review major concepts and materials from lecture
- Supported students with additional office hours every week to reinforce key ideas and answer questions to insure understanding of important learnings
- Collaborated with other TAs to hold review sessions for exams throughout the semester to prepare students for tests, contributing to a record-high 96% passing rate for the course

Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)

Teaching Assistant

- Utilized Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) analytic techniques to solve silicon process yield issues to support the development of new products
- Achieved certification on lab tools including Dual Beam IFBs, SEM,s EDS, and sample preparation tools

Valerie Chia