Natalie JinWorkstream
The technology buzz in San Francisco keeps Natalie Jin thinking about the future and what could be. “When you’re around that kind of energy all the time, it’s hard not to think about what technology could be,” she says.
Natalie is head of corporate partnerships at Workstream, where she was one of the first employees when she joined the company and moved to Menlo Park, CA., in 2021. Leaving a storied career in private equity was a risk Natalie was willing to take for a chance to pave her own path. She now leads a team of 12, creating partnerships with large corporate restaurant chains. “What drives me is the people,” she says, “people who believe in the mission, who want to do good work, want to come together and make the most of opportunities.”
A native of China, Natalie came to the United States when she was 4 years old. She was raised in Los Angeles by a single mother, and life “was all about survival.” She saw there was a bigger world and told herself, “I just need to study really hard tonight so that I can get to the other side.” Study she did, earning scholarships and becoming a finalist as a National Merit Scholar.
She earned a degree at Wellesley College in Boston with a double major in economics and Chinese language and literature, simultaneously earning a spot as a research assistant at the MIT Sloan School of Management. A summer internship at Goldman Sachs in New York led to a position in investment banking at Blackstone’s spinout, PJT Partners. She then joined Leonard Green & Partners as a private equity investor in 2020.
“The people who really spoke to me were the ones who built businesses” and dreamed big, she says. Natalie quotes the words of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe: “Dream no small dreams for they have no power to move the hearts of men.” Clearly a deep and careful thinker, Natalie says she asked herself, “So what is my mission?”
In her off-work hours, Natalie likes to take long walks and practice yoga. She shares this philosophy: “Having seen all the different layers of society in a very short period of time, I think how do you bring kindness into business and balance that with efficiency. I think it's possible to be both highly competent and efficient, but also bring humanity and humility into everything you do. I think that's something that I carry with me as I build teams, as I spent time with the people I care about, something that I hope to evangelize as I continue my career and then continue to accelerate my career.”
Natalie enjoys time with her closest family – her mother, her fiancé and their three dogs. She is carving out time to plan a wedding this year.