The impact has been unbelievable. The energy, communication, fun and production have shot through the roof. We had our highest productivity week of the year and everyone went sailing into the weekend (which hasn't happen in a while).
— Clint Drawdy, President, Medical Methods
Our Talented Team
Dhaya Lakshminarayanan
Dhaya is a communications specialist and the Chief Humorist of Allegory.
Dhaya is the daughter of Indian immigrants who made their way to the United States with only $12 and a suitcase between the two of them. She jokes they still have the suitcase, although the $12 was spent on pizza.
At the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) she received a Bachelor of Science and a Master of City Planning. Dhaya taught negotiations to MBA students at MIT and created the curriculum for her Charm School classes: "How to Tell a Joke," "Body Language," and "Small Talk."
Most recently she was at Omidyar Network, a $400M fund headed by eBay founder, Pierre Omidyar. Dhaya was responsible for sourcing, executing, closing, and managing both for-profit and nonprofit investments fostering economic, political, and social self-empowerment on a global scale. Her for-profit investments included: Innocentive, Digg, CircleLending, Prosper, Meetup, Voxiva, Eventful, Patients-Like-Me, and Collaborative Drug Discovery (on whose Board of Directors she was an Observer). Her nonprofit investments included KaBOOM!, Myelin Repair Foundation, Sunlight Foundation, and Guidestar.
Prior to joining Omidyar Network, Dhaya advised socially responsible corporations, startups, minority businesses and early-stage startups on strategy planning and operations. At Booz Allen Hamilton, a global management consulting firm, Dhaya specialized in the energy, technology, public sector, and telecommunications/media verticals. She also worked in asset management for Parnassus Investments, a $1B socially responsible mutual fund.
She has spoken at numerous venture capital, economic, political, leadership, and philanthropic panels and conferences. Dhaya is a stand-up comedienne with performances nationwide.
Dhaya combines her MIT engineering side (she is sometimes asked to integrate functions in her head at parties) with her business acumen and a fresh comedic perspective. She believes business is a powerful tool for social change and entrepreneurs can change the world.
Courtney began her entrepreneurial career twenty years ago building a national retail business. In seven years, she grew a seasonal retail business from 13 to 120 stores nationwide with $10 million in sales. She sourced products from China, launched a new skincare product line, and managed recruitment, training, and retention for the company's retail outlets. She also oversaw the operation of 80 franchisees. Locally, Courtney became a franchisee herself and launched three of her own stores locally in the San Francisco Bay area.
Previously, Courtney was a property manager in Chicago, responsible for managing a historic landmark and the Chicago Stock Exchange. In this position, Courtney managed budgets and relationships with tenants, unions, employees, and lenders. She also oversaw large-scale renovations and extensive tenant build-outs and expansions.
She believes that people are companies' most valuable asset and her success is built on her philosophy of building people's strengths and putting people in the right positions.
As Allegory's first employee, Courtney's entrepreneurial experience and vision lay the company's foundation and helped launch and grow the company.
Courtney is a yoga instructor trained in the Iyengar tradition. She has led Outervention overnight backcountry trips for young women in the San Francisco Juvenile Justice Program. She graduated from Michigan State University with a B.A. in Business.
Luke Klipp is proud to join the Allegory team. Currently, Luke is a legislative aide to San Francisco Supervisor Gerardo Sandoval and prior to that was a senior analyst with the Office of the Budget Analyst for the Board of Supervisors. He is President of the San Francisco Young Democrats and a graduate of the New Leaders Council, which is a training program for young progressive leaders. Additionally, he is a candidate for the San Francisco Democratic County Central Committee in 2008 and is a PAC Co-Chair of the Alice B. Toklas LGBT Democratic Club.
Luke holds a Masters degree in Public Policy from the University of California at Berkeley and a Bachelor's degree from the University of Michigan - Ann Arbor.
