Daina Paulikas – A Problem-Solver's Portfolio

Deep-Tech
Systems Architect

International Devt Practitioner

Social Sciences
Researcher

Executive Leader
and Strategist

"Show me a hard problem!"

Systems. Strategies. Invention. Growth.

I Recognize Patterns, Diagnose Problems, and Find Holistic Solutions

CONTACT LINKEDIN

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Deep-sea mining life cycle impact

Deep-sea nickel

Cheap inventory location tracker

Real-time location

LatAm startup ecosystem building

LatAm startups

Company process & culture change

Process Improvement

Advocating for others

Advocacy and change

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'Deep-sea mining' may conjure up fabled sea-bottom explorations, concern for oceanic ecosystems, and critical metals for the Green Transition. I led a team of senior executives and researchers to develop extensive life cycle models of climate-change, waste, and other impacts to produce battery metals (Ni, Co, etc.) from land ores or deep-sea deposits. We successfully published a 170-page white paper and several peer-reviewed articles, presented to a wide set of scientific, diplomatic, and international audiences, and instigated an ongoing conversation about planetary impact framing for this nuanced topic.

Technical | Written | Influencing | Team

Low-infrastructure and temporary warehouses such as Defense desert bases and seasonal facilities cannot feasibly instrument sites to track inventory using RFID. We founded a company to build a novel low-infrastructure phased array system, pivoting a multi-million dollar Defense concept into a commercially viable system using real-time beamforming & FFT algorithms and radio-stack layers in SW. I co-led the overall system design and product roadmap, and filled in as needed as lead algorithm designer, HW programmer, & other hats. We won $2M in non-dilutive government grants and partnered with Motorola for go-to-market.

Technical | Design | Written | Process | Team

While at BCG, I helped Puerto Rico create a data-backed strategy to grow a defense hub on the island. Independently, I helped Colombia's first early-stage VC (FirstRock) by advising its startups, lecturing on strategy, and judging competitions (EAFIT). I have also performed technical diligence on prospective deep-tech and climate-tech investments in Argentina. Under senior leadership, I co-led a public/private sector team to design an innovation-led strategy for Buenos Aires' new innovation park. Recently, I formally advise an Argentinian agtech company using satellite data with ML, led by a 5th gen Argentinian farmer & Harvard grad.

Strategic | Process | Influencing | Team

As a programmer and new hire at a derivatives-trading SW firm, I noticed a lack of requirements planning and inter-product collaboration. I validated this with peers, gained trust of directors with overlapping interests, and persuaded them to champion my change vision. I then instigated new org-wide strategic project processes, improved product robustness and installation simplicity, and added more robust requirements planning and new collaboration tools; the changes were institutionalized. For BCG clients, I employed low-scale experimentation, incremental trials, and coaching to effect culture & process change.

Org | Strategic | Process | Influencing | Team

While an MSc student at London School of Economics, student satisfaction scores were among UK's lowest. Motivated to fix this, I became the lead elected representative of ~200 MSc students. I brought quantitative survey results to committee meetings, enlisted the Program Director as an ally, and led a volunteer team to start implementing social & academic changes. Overall, I organized ~one dozen new programs, including adjusting the academic year amid extreme burnout and large scale events that became the year's highlights. Many of these programs are now institutionalized.

Org | Design | Written | Influencing | Team

Deep-Tech Systems Architect

Global Devt Practitioner

Social Sciences Researcher

Executive Leader and Strategist

Low-infrastructure and temporary warehouses such as Defense desert bases and seasonal facilities cannot feasibly instrument sites to track inventory using RFID. We founded a company to build a novel low-infrastructure phased array system, pivoting a multi-million dollar Defense concept into a commercially viable system using real-time beamforming & FFT algorithms and radio-stack layers in SW. I co-led the overall system design and product roadmap, and filled in as needed as lead algorithm designer, HW programmer, & other hats. We won $2M in non-dilutive govt grants and partnered with Motorola for go-to-market.

Technical | Design | Written | Process | Team

For over a decade, I've taken on projects to help develop Latin America's innovation ecosystems. In Puerto Rico, I created a data-backed strategy to grow a defense hub on the island. In Colombia, I advised the country's first early-stage VC (FirstRock) and coached startup CEOs, lectured on strategy, and judged competitions (EAFIT). In Argentina, I co-led a public/private sector team to design the strategy for Buenos Aires' new Urban innovation park, as well as technical due diligence in the carbon-capture deep-tech space. Recently, I was a founding Advisory Board member for an ML/Agtech company led by a 5th-gen Argentinian farmer.

Strategic | Process | Influencing | Team

DAINA

Soars

Solving Tough Problems & Helping People Thrive

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"From inventing deep-tech systems, to advising governments, to pushing the boundaries at mature organizations,

I lead with an entrepreneurial mentality and relentlessly scan my surroundings for problems to solve & ways to create value."

~ Global Reach ~

Projects for over three dozen entities

International experience

Languages

Native: English
Proficient: Spanish, Lithuanian
Intermediate: Italian, French
Beginning: German, Czech

~ Approach ~

My pattern recognition mindset + diversity of experiences allow me to improve outcomes across many levels

BUSINESSES: Creating smart strategies for cutting-edge industries
ORGANIZATIONS: Helping teams thrive and operate in strategic alignment
RESEARCH: Dissecting multi-faceted scientific and societal issues
ANALYSIS: Extracting unique, actionable insights from complex or incomplete data
POLICY: Designing industrial development solutions and fostering innovation
ENGINEERING: Creating robust edge-case algorithms and system architectures
INDIVIDUAL EXCELLENCE: Asking good questions, getting at the core of what motivates a person, and unblocking them

Read about example solutions:

Developing Latin America

I spent about 1/5 of the past 7 years in Latin America, learning about its unique constraints and having a small part in nudging entrepreneurial development. In Colombia, I helped an MBA classmate establish the country’s first early-stage VC & advised his startup CEOs on go to market strategies. In Argentina, alongside senior leaders I co-led a public/private team on a robust strategy for a new innovation campus, and helped VCs vet startup opportunities. (Yes, I also danced some tango.)

Deep-Sea Mining Sustainability

As a research consultant for DeepGreen Metals (now The Metals Company), I led the research, modeling, and writing of a 170-page white paper that assessed 19 indicators and compared sustainability of metals produced from deep-sea polymetallic nodules in the Pacific versus projected impacts from land-ore mining. This led to a number of peer-reviewed publications comparing climate change, waste, and biodiversity impacts. (See details in Research section.)

Leading Program Reforms

While an MSc student at the LSE, I was elected lead representative of ~200 MSc Economics students. In this capacity I redefined a high level of proactivity, and I strategically allied myself with the MSc director for administrative & funding support. I led a team of 7 volunteers in monitoring students’ needs, and together we proposed, funded, and executed ~a dozen academic and social programs, events, and reforms to improve student satisfaction and alleviate stress.

~ Services ~

Click to expand services by client type:

Early-Stage Startups

Services

Co-founder, Chief of Staff, Head of Strategy, Head of Product
Board Advisory
Pitch decks
Strategy review and business plan development
Operations review and development
Product roadmap development, human-centric design / systems engineering
Sustainability modeling and life cycle analysis
Content development, academic and professional writing
Networking
Coaching

Past Clients Include

Startups: The Metals Company, Arthena, Darwin, TrueMetrics, Einsted
Investors: FirstRock (VC), small Angel investors
Sectors: deep tech, climate tech, fintech, agtech, SAAS, mining and minerals
Geographies: US, Canada, Colombia, Argentina, Germany

Corporations

Services

Operational process assessment and enhancement
Culture change management
White paper research & production
Financial & economic modeling
Risk management
Quantitative and qualitative research
Strategic market and industrial characterization
Engineering process review

Past Clients Include

Google, The Metals Company, Fortune 500 tech & financial firms

Governments and IGOs

Services

Labor support program design
Economic development strategy
Innovation ecosystem strategy design
Policy design
Training resources planning
Public-private partnership team leadership
Tech product suite development
Partnership development

Past Clients Include

Clients: Saudi Arabia Ministry of Labor, Government of Buenos Aires, Government of Puerto Rico, Sacramento Mayor’s Office, World Bank Group
Level: Municipal, Federal, International
Geographies: US, Argentina, Saudi Arabia

Academia, Non-Profits, NGOs

Services

Strategy review
Organization strategy & cultural review
Internal process review
Value proposition and offering planning and validation
Networking and outreach
Board Member

Past Clients Include

Clients: Juilliard, Rehabilitation for the Arts, America Needs You, Greenwise Joint Venture, Sustainable Endowments Fund, EuroRelief
Sectors: Arts, Education, Sustainability, Agriculture, Refugee Aid
Geographies: US, Europe, South America, Africa

Communities

Services

Pro-bono consulting
Alumni events coordination
Advisory Boards
Mentorship
NGO and Non-Profit volunteering
Elected local representative

Past Involvement Includes:

Entities: Harvard Business School Community Partners (consulting for local non-profits), Caltech Alumni Association, AmericaNeeds You, EuroRelief, London School of Economics
Sectors: Consulting, Education, Refugee Aid, Development

Leaders and Individuals

Services

Leadership coaching
Career coaching
Economic development coaching
Mentorship
Mindfulness advocacy
Work-life balance advocacy
Women’s circles

Browse topics, functions, and work styles:

Topics

Innovative solutions to binding constraints
Negative externality awareness and identification
Systems perspectives, systemic risk
Geopolitics esp. US, S. America, Europe, Russia
Problem solving under crisis
Economic development
Cultures of corruption, self-perpetuating norms
Organizational dysfunction vs. thriving
Equitable supply chains
Free market failures
Bureaucratic systems and institutions
Women’s influence in the workforce
Individual and managerial excellence

Functions

Organizational improvement
Software development process improvement
Designing solution architectures (tech, biz, ops)
Negotiations, networking, win-win solutions
Bridging communication gaps
Strategic problem solving, business plan design
Human-centric product design
Mathematical modeling and algorithm design
Motivation, coaching, lifelong growth
Fostering positive workplace climates, high-performance teams, objective performance evaluation, learning organizations
Instigating innovation & growth

Work Style

Highly collaborative
Tenacious, ambitious, authentic, friendly
Proactive in helping reframe problems to attain clarity and regain motivation
Creative, pattern finding, synthesizing
Nimble between technical, product, strategic, sales, academic settings
Big-picture context to detailed
Balanced between strategic coherence and practical executability
Actively building & contributing to networks
Mentoring, coaching, open trust-based
Informal influencing
Hands-on within developing communities

~ Testimonials ~

"Daina is one of the smartest, most versatile and entrepreneurial economists I've come across in my years at the LSE. As the MSc program director at LSE, I got to appreciate her multi-talented skill set ranging from business and consulting to programming, from economic policy to physics. She is extremely passionate, knowledgeable, energetic, and unique. I am certain that her impact on any company or institution will be massive."

Francesco NavaDirector, MSc Economics Program, London School of Economics

"Ms. Paulikas' past experiences speak for her intelligence. She is one of these extraordinary people that one seldom meets, that has experienced the world, yet is not disillusioned by it; suffered setbacks, yet is still full of passion. She has a wide imagination and still applies her energy to better the world around her. She is like a light spark that is seeking opportunity to set afire her next adventure."

Shin YangTechnical Fellow, Northrop Grumman; Principal, Booz

"Of the 100's of employees I have hired and supervised over my career, Daina stands out as one of the very few that has both the brain power to solve problems individually, and the team and interpersonal skills to work effectively in groups. I suspect she will never end her quest for personal growth or lose her passion to become all that she can."

Anne YeeVP Engineering, TruePoint Systems; Owner, Enfuso

~ In Action ~

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"From inventing deep-tech systems, to advising governments, to pushing the boundaries at mature organizations, I lead with an entrepreneurial mentality and relentlessly scan my surroundings for problems to solve & ways to create value."

~ Global Reach ~

Projects for over three dozen entities

International experience

Languages

Native: English Proficient: Spanish, Lithuanian Intermediate: Italian, French Beginning: German, Czech

~ Approach ~

My pattern recognition mindset + diversity of experiences allow me to improve outcomes across many levels

Read about example solutions:

Developing Latin America

Deep-Sea Mining Sustainability

Leading Program Reforms

~ Services ~

Click to expand services by client type:

Early-Stage Startups

Corporations

Governments and IGOs

Academia, Non-Profits, NGOs

Communities

Leaders and Individuals

Browse topics, functions, and work styles:

Topics

Topics

Functions

Functions

Work Style

Work Style

~ Testimonials ~

~ In Action ~

Reach out!

"From inventing deep-tech systems, to advising governments, to pushing the boundaries at mature organizations,

I lead with an entrepreneurial mentality and relentlessly scan my surroundings for problems to solve & ways to create value."

Native: English
Proficient: Spanish, Lithuanian
Intermediate: Italian, French
Beginning: German, Czech