lilyzhao2@gmail.com - Los Angeles

I’m hungry & currently exploring strategic GenAI opportunities in the entertainment, social media, and content spaces.

Education

  • Cornell University, B.S in Hotel Business Administration

    NCAA Division 1 Varsity Athlete

  • University of Chicago Laboratory High School

    Top 3 Science Olympiad, National Policy Debate

Work Experience

  • Story.com, Prompt Engineer

  • A16 Startup, Product Manager

  • Unreal, Founder & Product Dev

  • Instacart, Business Development

  • Pulsd, Head of Partnerships

  • Oaktree Capital / Bellwether, Business Analyst

  • UChicago, Research Assistant to Freakonomics Author

Accomplishments

  1. Tested and improved prompts in a 5-step movie agent

  2. Doubled monthly shares (68k to 121k) 3 weeks in

  3. Worked on beta company as a solo founder

  4. Learned food science to lead product dev

  5. Worked directly under cofounder of Instacart

  6. Extended pandemic runway by 3 months at a startup

  7. Created a social media app prototype in a day

  8. Offered a cookbook deal, made viral Instagram page (30k+ followers)

  9. Walked on with no experience onto a D1 Varsity Sport

Global Experience

  • Beijing, China: Business Intern - Kaifeng Foundation

  • Paris, France: Director of Operations Assistant - Hilton Hotels

Life Goals

  • Work on the founding team of a unicorn

  • Work in a writer’s room + be a showrunner

  • Write a cult classic sci-fi (book or movie)

  • Create a transformative documentary

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Writing & Analysis

I enjoy analyzing data & trends to inform entertainment & social media strategy:

  • I wrote this in a few days on new election survey data

  • I wrote this as a trust & safety interview exercise

AI Videos & Storytelling

  • Shorts I made (with no experience): Zoe the Procreating Doll | Freedom | Hungry

  • My first pilot (30-minute dramedy), quarterfinalist at Manchester Film Festival

  • My screenplay (dark comedy), accepted as advanced script at UCLA Extension

Recent Projects

  • Tested and improved prompts (for script, images & animations) for movieAI

  • Social Share Feature at AI story platform

  • Semi-automated organic marketing creation flow

  • Test Case/Eval for Prompt Iterations

  • BQ/MCP user persona, competitor analysis

  • Prototype, made in a few days - Github | Loom vs Old Version

  • AI Review Scraper Dashboard - Loom | Github

  • Social App - Product Jam/Prototype

  • Social Messaging Startup - Pitch Consultation