Elaine Zhou is the Chief Technology Officer of Change.org, the world’s largest social change platform with more than 400 million users in 196 countries. As Change.org’s technical leader, Elaine leads a global engineering team to drive Change.org to the forefront of Responsible AI, to elevate the platform capability to reach a larger community, and engage repeat users who can lead change for their causes.
Most recently, Elaine was the CTO at Vidado.ai, an Oakland AI startup, dedicated to use Artificial Intelligence to help organizations unlock critical insight trapped in handwritten documents to drive their operations and strategy. Previously, Elaine was the SVP of Development overseeing engineering and product development at Clean Power Finance (CPF), a solar leasing & financing startup backed by Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and Google Ventures. Elaine’s 20+ years of experience includes technology strategy, AI research and development, software product development and process improvement. Elaine received her B.S. in Industrial Engineering and Operations Research from UC Berkeley. In her free time, Elaine can be found traveling to some far flung island, paddleboarding Richardson Bay, hiking a local peak or discussing life in a startup over milk tea with her husband, Ken.
Understanding the role of a CTO
How to define and develop in your role on the technical track.
Building stable engineering organizations in times of change
Meri Williams, with Jean-Michel Lemieux, Claudius Mbemba and Elaine Zhou at LeadDev Live 2021 discussing 'Building stable engineering organisations in times of change'.