Nina Teng

BSE, University of Pennsylvania MA, Columbia University MPA/ID, Harvard University PhD, Oxford University Nina Teng is a PhD candidate in Strategy and Entrepreneurship at London Business School and a Lecturer at the MIT Sloan School of Management during the 2025–2026 academic year, where she co-teaches 15.390 Entrepreneurship 101: A Systematic Approach to New Venture Creation. Her research has been published in Management Science and recognized with the 2021 SRF Dissertation Scholar Award (WMDRG) from the Strategic Management Society.

She studies how organizations attract and evaluate talent under conditions of uncertainty, with a focus on how hiring signals and compensation structures shape labor markets, identity, and team formation. Her job market paper, “Symbolic Sorting in Hiring: A Field Experiment on Framing Equity Compensation,” introduces the concept of symbolic sorting. Drawing on a field experiment embedded in a real startup’s recruitment process, she explores how identical equity compensation offers—when framed as investment or as co-ownership—segment candidates into distinct orientations toward upside opportunity, security-seeking, and organizational fit. More broadly, her research examines how labor market practices operate not only as economic incentives, but also as symbolic signals that shape how organizational futures are imagined and who chooses to join them.

Nina's industry experience motivates her research. Prior to academia, Nina was an early startup employee and founding Vice President of Public Affairs at Grab, where she led government affairs, public policy, and social impact at the leading ride-hailing and superapp platform in Southeast Asia. Nina was also an early investor in Grab in 2014. Nina continues to invest in and advise technology startups through her venture fund, CSVE Ventures; and proudly serves on the Extended Leadership Team of the XA Network, Southeast Asia’s largest tech angel investor network, and as an Entrepreneur in Residence at the Martin Trust Center for MIT Entrepreneurship.