The daughter of two Vietnam War refugees, Dalena spent the first part of her life deeply focused on her education, in the hopes of achieving upward mobility for her family. From an early age, she learned that economic stability was a privilege and that there were considerable struggles for those without it. Her family’s dreams were one significant step closer to being realized when she received a Grant to attend UC Berkeley, initially with the intention of pursuing a career in medicine. However, through her extracurricular and leadership experiences, she realized that though her love for science and for helping people hadn’t wavered, her passion was for relationship building and communication - not for diagnosis. She found out about the realm of technical recruiting, and her career path forever changed. 

Dalena started her career at Embark Trucks, helping support and scale the team through IPO. After Embark, she applied her skills to the world of venture at Contrary Capital, and prior to her role at Casca was at Pulley building teams for equity management software. She holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Integrative Human Biology from UC Berkeley and joined Casca to build a world-class team that is passionate about building a more equitable financial future and creating economic opportunity for small businesses. 

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