Lina Trivedi

Trivedi had been appointed to two public service positions in Madison, WI. She served as the Minority Representative in the Community Services Commission and on the Community Development Block Grant Commission from 2005 to 2008.

In 2004, Trivedi worked for the Urban League where she worked on the Workforce and Economic Development Team to help individuals transition from disadvantaged backgrounds into the job market. In this position, she developed a concept of job fulfillment in the private sector called "Alternative Selection" which is an alternative to Affirmative Action that allows employers to develop pools of candidates based on economic disadvantage, rather than race. Madison Gas and Electric was one of the first businesses to adopt such employment methods in 2008.

Trivedi's design firm was named one of the top design firms in Chicago by Crain's Chicago Business in 1998. Trivedi was also named one of the top 30 local talents in 1999 by the Chicago Sun Times. Then in 2000, the Chicago Sun Times named Trivedi one of the top 30 Chicago area entrepreneurs under the age of 30.

Trivedi transcended from her career with Beanie Babies and started her own Web design firm in 1997 where she developed the first Web sites for many notable entities, including the Sears Tower, Spice Girls and Mötley Crüe. Her innovations included broadcasting snapshots of the Chicago skyline from the top of the Sears Tower through their Web site.

The Beanie Babies Web site that Trivedi created was the first business to consumer Web site designed to bridge the gap between business and consumers. The Web site contained innovative features, such as the ability to vote for a Beanie Baby that managed a blog on the official site that contained multiple entries per day. Also there was a trading post, featured fan mail and a list of 101 things to do with a Beanie Baby. The Beanie Babies Web site was receiving over 1 billion visits per year and Trivedi is credited to cultivating the demand of Beanie Babies through the Internet. In 1996, Trivedi coordinated three private Boeing 747s to bring Beanie Babies to American retail locations in time for Easter.

The snowball effect of the Beanie Babies craze and the rise of the Internet was not foreseen in advance. Although Ty, Inc. was very private about their sales figures related to Beanie Babies, Trivedi was quoted as saying that "sales were overwhelming." Trivedi also played a vital role in the design of Beanie Babies, as well as the new and retiring characters as they were announced. As part of her campaign to engage audiences, she coordinated fans to guide the creation of the 100th Beanie Baby character through the Internet in 1996.

Later in 1995, Trivedi approached Warner to talk about a new development that existed on college campuses called the Internet. She indicated that the Internet was primarily a research tool, however, college students were starting to make personal Websites and she thought creating a Web site for Beanie Babies could present a unique opportunity to engage the consumer market. She brought her 14.4k modem that was supplied by DePaul University where she was enrolled as a student, and demonstrated how the Internet works. Mr. Warner was intrigued and he gave Trivedi free license to create a Web site using her judgement and skills. By the time the first iteration of the Ty Web site was published in late 1995, only 1.4% of Americans were using the Internet. The population of people using the Internet grew exponentially in the following years, along with the popularity of Beanie Babies.

Trivedi began working at Ty, Inc. in 1992 when she was hired as their 12th employee. In 1995, Beanie Babies were escalating as a pop culture craze throughout the world. In early 1995, Trivedi approached Ty Warner, then President of Ty, Inc., and shared her thoughts that the product hang tags were boring, and unique birthdays and poems on the inside of the heart-shaped tags would make the items more collectible and interesting. She shared an example poem that she wrote for Stripes the Tiger, which ended up having Trivedi's birthday. Immediately, Mr. Warner assigned her with the task of writing all the Beanie Babies poems and designing the inside of over 100 product tags.

She was raised by entrepreneurial parents who cultivated her skills at computer programming at a very young age. In the early 1980s, Trivedi's family purchased an IBM Personal Computer 5150 and at 7 years old, Trivedi's mother made Lina read the DOS 1.0 manual 3 times. In second grade, Trivedi was writing simple computer programs in BASIC.

Lina Trivedi (born June 11, 1973) is an American entrepreneur, author, educator and public servant.