MEET OUR
TEAM
Hover to learn more about our executive team from across MD, VA, NJ, CA, MI, and Canada
CEO | COO
Founder and InnovateX Advisor, Former Chief Executive Officer
Katie Yuan is a freshman in Wharton at the University of Pennsylvania studying Finance. Outside of InnovateX, she previously served as President of Maryland DECA, Legislative Affairs Deputy in her countywide regional student government and co-created her county’s first Asian American Pacific Islander Elective Curriculum.
InnovateX Advisor, Former Chief Operations Officer
Lauren Perl is a sophomore at Harvard University studying public policy. She currently serves as the National Co-Director of Federal Affairs for Generation Ratify, Maryland Area Coordinator for Amnesty International, and Director of Field Organization for Montgomery County Students for Change.
InnovateX Advisor, Former Chief Operations Officer
Noah Pinson is a freshman at Georgia Tech. He is very passionate about educational equity and worked with numerous other organizations such as the Montgomery County Regional Student Government Association and Student Voice. Outside of Innovate-X, he enjoys traveling, playing volleyball, and keeping up-to-date with the real estate market!
EXECUTIVE TEAM
Sophia Wu is a sophomore at Richard Montgomery High School. She’s passionate about meeting new people and spreading her knowledge to younger generations. Sophia recently joined InnovateX and is excited to expand what she knows about entrepreneurship.
Chief Executive Officer
Vaishnavi Banda is a junior at Poolesville High School. She is passionate about youth entrepreneurship and financial literacy and hopes to continue advocating for people of all socioeconomic backgrounds through working towards closing the opportunity gap. Outside of school, Vaishnavi enjoys reading and has been dancing for over a decade now.
Chief Executive Officer
Advocacy Director
Angelina Xu is a sophomore at Richard Montgomery High School's IB program in Rockville, Maryland. She won first place in her state for her state DECA competition and qualified for internationals. She teaches abstract problem solving skills to several classes of elementary school children and is an avid member of her school's debate team. She loves finance and is excited to be a part of InnovateX!
Advocacy Team
Camila Shiva is a rising senior at Churchill. who has a passion for business, economics, finance, and for increasing accessibility to these subjects. Camila’s an ambassador for InnovateX and enjoys meeting new people and sharing different perspectives with others. Lastly, some of her pastimes include playing guitar and tennis.
Advocacy Team
Pranavi is a rising sophomore at Seneca Valley. She's super excited to be joining the InnovateX team this year and start addressing issues related to personal finance.
Advocacy Team
Allison Sweeney (she/her) is a sophomore in the Humanities House at Poolesville High School. She is enthused by Innovate-X's drive to promote material change for the betterment of students and future leaders and influences her work with organizations such as Generation Ratify and Montgomery County Regional SGA. She enjoys musical theatre, international politics, and old noir cinema.
Chief Finance Advisor
Stefanie Wang is a rising junior at Winston Churchill High School. Out of school, she has been playing volleyball for six years and the piano for eight. During quarantine, she likes to read, bake, and work out. A fun fact about her is that she enjoys traveling, and has been to over fifteen countries!
Sinny Ye is a junior at Winston Churchill High School. She is very passionate and interested in business and entrepreneurship. She is a part of her school's DECA chapter and qualified for ICDC last year. In her spare time, Sinny likes to draw and watch anime.
Finance Team
Chief Financial Officer
Emily Liu is a senior at Montgomery Blair High School. Her favorite subjects are math and computer science. Outside of school, she spends her time playing basketball and french horn. She is also passionate about business and hopes to teach others the many aspects of entrepreneurship.
Chapter Network Director
Rosemary Yang will be the Chapter Network Director this year. Residing in Maryland, she's passionate about personal finance and meeting all the new teams at InnovateX. She is also a proud viola player who loves to make dumplings whenever she can.
Jessica Xue is a junior at Winston Churchill High School in Maryland. She loves working with kids and in her free time, she enjoys drawing, volleyball, baking, reading, arts and crafts.
Midatlantic Regional Director
Pacific Northwest Regional Director
Deepti Ravidath is a rising senior at Westview High School in Portland, OR. She is passionate about teaching financial literacy and STEM education, and wants to continue advocating for people of all backgrounds. Outside school, she pursues vocal music, dance, and the violin. She is very excited to be part of InnovateX!
Vaishnavi Banda is a freshman at Poolesville High Highschool. She is passionate about youth entrepreneurship and financial literacy and hopes to continue advocating for people of all socioeconomic backgrounds through working towards closing the opportunity gap. Outside of school, Vaishnavi enjoys reading and has been dancing for over a decade now.
Outreach Director
Hawon Lee is a senior at Montgomery Blair High School. She is interested in entrepreneurship and enjoys working with younger kids. Outside of school, she loves to play the violin and make music.
Director of Content Creation
Events Director
Daniel Lee is a senior at Thomas Sprigg Wootton High School. Outside of school, he spends his time playing football, running track, and saxophone. He is interested in business and entrepreneurship, and is excited to join Innovate X to help spread the word!
Shreya Sampath is a rising junior at Livingston High School in New Jersey. She is a part of the communications team at InnovateX, and works with content creation! She is passionate about politics, economics, and business. In her free time, she enjoys reading and listening to music.
Content Creation
Natalie Seah is a rising senior at Seneca Valley High School in Montgomery County, Maryland. She is so grateful to be a part of the Innovate-X graphic design team! She is passionate about entrepreneurship, the medical field, and business/finance. In her free time, she enjoys lacrosse, volleyball, and drawing.
Content Creation
Events Director
Catherine is a rising sophomore at Winston Churchill High School. She is passionate about business and entrepreneurship, and she loves meeting new people. Catherine's hobbies include debating, playing the flute, and volunteering.
Outreach Team
Vivian Li has a passion for equality in education. She wants to use the privilege she has to help those who don't and work towards closing the achievement gap. She is also interested in social entrepreneurship and government policy as well. In her free time, you can find her playing music, tennis, or goofing off with friends!
Runzhe Cui is a rising senior at Wootton High School. He is really passionate about business, co-founding FBLA at Wootton, serving as Vice President of training for DECA, and founding InnovateX at Wootton. He hopes to help fill the void of the lack of business education in primary education.
Education Team Advisor
CFO
Raina Kella is a junior at Winston Churchill High School in Maryland. She is passionate about personal financial literacy education and believes everyone should have access to it. In her free time, she likes to run, paint, and play with her dog.
Claire Zhao is a rising junior at The Bishop’s School in San Diego, California. She is passionate about entrepreneurship, education, and technology, and wants to be able to combine her skills in those areas to increase the accessibility of knowledge not directly taught in school.
Education Lead
Emily Wu is a rising junior at Richard Montgomery High School. Emily enjoys working with young children, with extensive experience as teaching assistants, coaching, and curriculum writing. She has won awards in multiple business competitions on the regional and state level and loves economics and business in general. She’s incredibly excited to launch the entrepreneurship program this year!
Education Lead
Siddharth Krishna is currently a 17-year old senior at Mountain House, California. He is interested in the business and Computer Science field. Siddharth is also proud to be a part of the outreach team for InnovateX and loves to collaborate with others. Outside of InnovateX, he likes to code and loves to play video games with his friends.
Outreach Team
April Seach is on the education team for innovate-x. She taught 2 semesters worth in the innovate-x afterschool program. This program was a life changing experience. Along the way, she was able to make many more new friends, this allowed her to expand my friend group. This was so much fun that she ended up choosing to join the education team. The education team is so friendly and always open to new ideas and super understanding, the members really make you feel at home. She can't wait to help innovate-x by sharing her many ideas.
Education Team
STATE DIRECTORS
Lucas Yang is a student at Centennial High School in Ellicott City, Maryland. He’s extremely passionate about business, economics, finance, & entrepreneurship. He strives to bridge the gap that currently exists for financial literacy in education. Lucas looks forward to expanding InnovateX's impact to increase the accessibility of resources and opportunities for all.
MD State Director
Akash Verma is a Junior at Richard Montgomery High school in Maryland. He has a great passion for finance and is heavily interested in investments and business. Akash likes to spend his time with friends and playing lacrosse.
MD State Director
Katie Zhang is a junior at Dougherty Valley High School from California. Outside of the academic heavy atmosphere, Katie enjoys playing violin, tennis, and volleyball. Katie is passionate about economics, mathematics, and finance and hopes to pursue along the lines of mathematical economics or business. She is excited for this opportunity and looks forward to helping the community and InnovateX Foundation grow. Hoping to bring in scholars from different backgrounds with similar interests into action and influencing younger generations.
CA State Director
Evan Huang is currently a sophomore at Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology. He has a passion for learning new things about business and finance. Evan also plays on the basketball team and rows for the crew team at TJ.
VA Finance Officer
Arushi is a sophomore at South Brunswick High School and is joining Innovate-X as NJ’s Director of Chapter Engagement and starting a chapter at her school. She is passionate about entrepreneurship and is interested in pursuing a career in computer science. In her free time, she enjoys baking and playing the violin. She loves helping others and is very excited to be a part of Innovate-X to help make an impact on her generation.
NJ State Director
Rachel Bae is16 and a sophomore at Fort Lee High School. She has great interests in financing and politics. She is currently enrolled in a program called the Academy of Finance, on her way to becoming NAFTrack certified.She been playing violin for about 5 years and piano for about 10 years. She enjoys tennis and teaching others about things she knows (which is why she was so drawn to Innovate-X).
NJ Director of Finance
Mihika is a student at High School North, New Jersey. She is invested in entrepreneurship, business, and financial literacy, and strives to bring financial opportunities for students of all socioeconomic backgrounds. She currently serves as the director of finance at Codenovate and lead at Code4Tomorrow. She is excited to be working with Innovate X and expand her knowledge of economics/finance!
NJ State Director
Sanjana is a junior at South Brunswick High School, joining InnovateX as the NJ Director of Outreach. She plans to pursue a career in medicine while having a keen interest in finance, economics, and artificial intelligence to bridge the gap between the health care, technology, and business sectors. Sanjana is also passionate about mental health advocacy and learning about various pseudosciences. Additionally, she enjoys playing the piano and dancing in her free time
NJ Director of Outreach
Anirudh Bansal is a senior at Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology (TJHSST) in Alexandria, Virginia. He actively competes in business competitions and is a 2x Conrad Challenge Summit finalist. In his free time, he loves traveling, going on hikes, and playing basketball.
VA State Director
Sania Ahmad is a rising high school senior from North Texas. Her interests lie in entrepreneurship, finance, and business law. In her free time, Sania likes to draw, read psychological thrillers, and advocate for subjects she's passionate about, such as mental health and financial literacy.
TX State Director
Akash Wudali is a sophomore attending Thomas Jefferson high school who lives in Fairfax, Virginia. Some of the classes he enjoys are math and computer science. Outside of school he likes to play basketball, which he plays on a team, and workout. Some of his interests include sports, business, and music.