Bio

Alia Poonawala is the Executive Director for Hire Hopkins and has spent the past decade of her career working in higher ed, ed tech, and alternative education.

She’s passionate about the bridge between the world of work and higher ed, having led sales, marketing, and partnerships in the startup and edtech space (LearnerNation, Ironhack) where she built revenue-generating partnerships and equity-driven scholarship programs with Facebook and Uber.

At Johns Hopkins, she leads an innovation office that focuses on design thinking solutions to build diverse and inclusive hiring pipelines for companies and effective hiring collaborations between industry and career offices, all leading to Hire Hopkins North Star: highly-satisfactory employment offers (outcomes) for all graduates regardless of background or social capital (equity).

She spends her free time coaching startup leaders through her work with First Round Capital and Techstars, has been featured in publications like Inc. Magazine, has won national awards on successful hiring initiatives in higher ed from NACE (National Association for Colleges and Employers), and has delivered talks for organizations like SXSW Edu, Handshake, and Girls Who Code.

Get to Know Alia

What excites you most about your job?

“Matchmaking brilliant students with companies who can shape their worlds and change their lives – at scale, in an equitable way. What’s not thrilling about this?”

What was your dream job as a kid?

“I wanted to be a be a glaciologist and live in Antarctica.”

If time and money were no issue, what are the jobs that you would be doing?

“I’d be a florist, a food critic, or open up a community center that had hobby classes for adults (if you’re familiar with Danish Folk High Schools… something like that!)”

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