Former CEO Shalini Nag stays on as a strategic advisor and passes the CEO torch to ProPhound’s co-founder and COO Ali Deatsch

We are thrilled to re-introduce a very familiar face to our ProPhounD community with a brand new title: Ali Deatsch, co-founder and *drumroll please* our new CEO.

As our former CEO Shalini Nag steps into a strategic advisor role, she confidently passes the torch to Ali and the two will work closely together for a seamless transition.

Ali helped found the company as a postdoc at the University of Wisconsin and has served as COO since the company’s founding. As ProPhounD has developed, so have Ali’s leadership skills. Ali lives ProPhounD’s values, leads with empathy, and is passionate about our mission. We are confident that with the rest of the founding team, Ali will lead ProPhounD toward its vision of building a better world, helping PhDs identify and land meaningful careers they love outside of academia.

Over the year and a half since our company’s launch, we have accomplished so much to be proud of (see our post about it here!). Since our launch we have served over 650 PhD-seekers, offering safe spaces for career development with peer support, chances to explore alternate career paths with real PhDs in industry, advice and encouragement from those who have been in their shoes, and opportunities to connect meaningfully with potential employers.

Under Shalini’s strategic leadership, our startup was brought to life, we advanced our mission, and we bolstered our team’s business acumen. Our founding team of PhDs and university career educators benefited immensely from Shalini’s private sector experience and industry-related expertise. Her creative problem-solving, work ethic, and process development have been invaluable assets to our growth. As Shalini takes a step back from the day-to-day at ProPhounD, she will continue to serve as a strategic advisor to the team and be involved in the strategic growth of the company. We know this serial entrepreneur has so much more to accomplish, and we couldn’t be more grateful for her guidance along our path.

(P.S. Don’t forget to follow her to continue to gain her shared wisdom and watch her exciting career!)

“We are so thankful to Shalini for her leadership and for her time and effort toward achieving our mission,” says Ali. “Her invaluable personal mentorship to me has given me the confidence to step into this CEO role. I’m delighted to get the chance to lead this passionate and talented ProPhounD team and excited about the amazing things we have planned for our PhD community.”

In the next year, we will continue to advance our mission to bridge the gap between the underutilized workforce of PhDs and the organizations that need them. We plan to bring you more of what you love: career advising sessions with Andrew Cusick, professional development events with career experts and PhDs who have made the switch to industry, and opportunities to network with potential employers and build relationships with peers. Keep an eye out for exciting new items on the horizon.

*Spoiler Alert:* Look for multi-employer events, a revamped networking platform, and career tips galore!

We are so grateful for our amazing PhD community and your continued support. We are more committed than ever to our vision: Building a better world by enabling smart people to solve hard problems in roles that best fit them.

And we’re just getting started.