Pooja left home at age 14 to attend Phillips Exeter Academy for four transformational years, and continued her higher education in French honors at Dartmouth College. Upon graduation Pooja was the recipient of a Fulbright Program scholarship in Toulouse, France. She then began her career at JPMorgan in New York as an Analyst in the Private Bank, where she braved a rigorous 3-year banking bootcamp under the tutelage of Wall Street gurus. With a solid foundation in sell-side banking, Pooja pursued her MBA at Harvard Business School, her top choice school for its focus on transformational leadership and global business management. She graduated amid the financial crisis and returned to JPMorgan – this time in Geneva - as an investor, co-managing and trading multi-asset portfolios for ultra-high net worth clients across Europe. Pooja credits her years at JPMorgan for unequivocally laying the foundation of practical and invaluable life lessons & skills, which she has revisited throughout her career.

Successfully transferring her experiences to media and tech, Pooja was a VP for online marketplaces and COO of N. Europe at Scandinavia’s largest public media conglomerate, Schibsted. For half a decade in Oslo, she has been an operational manager for and an advisor to several early stage tech start-ups; she actively connects venture investors in the region with global deal flow in her role as a board advisor to San Diego based, Spark Growth Ventures. Together with her husband, Nils, she enjoys investing in purposeful, global tech companies as a growth investor.

The most recent evolution in Pooja’s career has brought her full-circle, into higher education. Over the past year and half – a seminal moment within undergraduate admissions - she worked as a Senior Admissions Officer for her alma mater, Dartmouth College. Residing in Europe as an Ivy League officer, Pooja covered applicants from both, her native Northeast US, as well as Northern Europe and Asia. She is fluently versed in the US application process from the perspectives of native and international applicants. Pooja’s experience in Dartmouth admissions was preceded by years serving as an alumni interviewer for Phillips Exeter, and as a teacher to under-resourced students in several capacities. With a lifelong track record as an alumni leader, volunteer & teacher, Pooja’s singular calling has been service in independent education with an emphasis on connecting with, coaching and lifting talented students & youth.