Keenan Gao

Email: keenanwgao@gmail.com

Keenan Gao was born in China and immigrated to the USA at 18 months old. Although she passed her hearing screening at birth, her parents discovered that she was hard of hearing at age 4. She used bilateral hearing aids through her life until receiving a cochlear implant in January 2020. She has spent her career in the financial services industry where she has applied her modeling and data science skills to credit lending, economic policy, fraud and operational risk, and marketing. 

Keenan specializes in delivering actionable insights in a compelling and easily digestible manner for both technical and non-technical audiences, working with stakeholders to develops strategic plans with clear performance benchmarks, and providing ongoing monitoring, support, and consultation.

In her personal time, Keenan has a passion for advocating for organizations to expand their capabilities for diversity and inclusion. Projects that Keenan has led include Minneapolis becoming the first city to have a theater that offered 100% open captions for all movies, establishing a rock climbing summer camp for D/HH youth at Minneapolis Bouldering Project, coordinating the Midwest Ski Council’s Deaf and Hard of Hearing snowboarding program at Hyland Hills, and serving as an adaptive snowboarding instructor in Courage Kenny’s Adaptive Ski/Snowboard Program.

Keenan is business-fluent in English, Chinese, ASL, and is currently learning Chinese Sign Language. She holds a B.S. in Mathematical Sciences from Carnegie Mellon University and a M.S. in Financial Mathematics from University of Minnesota.