Welcome Richard Zhang!

Richard joins Pear as Chief of Staff to our managing partner, Mar Hershenson, and Director of Pear Accelerator. In his role, Richard is responsible for planning and operating the accelerator program, helping our portfolio companies with business development, fundraising, operations, and supporting Mar’s overall daily workflow.

“I joined pear because of the alignment and heavy double-down on community organizing. I am excited to be working with passionate and ambitious early-stage founders with big ideas!”

Prior to Pear, Richard fell in love with the venture world during an internship with Pillar VC. He completed his PhD at MIT Mathematics under Prof. Gilbert Strang, where he focused on the physical modeling of microfluidics. During his PhD, he also worked with Massachusetts General Hospital on using efficient ML algorithms to optimize hospital operations and has published in high-impact journals such as Nature.

Outside of work, Richard is a community organizer at heart who cares deeply about the mental health and well-being of students and entrepreneurs. Together with six MIT grad students and postdocs, Richard co-founded FAIL!, a nonprofit aimed to de-stigmatize failures and foster psychological safety in hyper-competitive workplaces. 

Say “hello” to Richard on Twitter @richardczhang.