It all begins with the beautiful game of soccer. I started playing at age 11 and it was love at first touch. My dream was to be a professional athlete and I got pretty close to making it happen. I played all the way through college, even won a national championship and then suddenly, the women’s pro league in the US folded and that pathway vanished overnight. I was inconsolable but got the sort of job that required a suit, which at the time was my measure for being a successful adult.

Turns out an ill-fitting blazer didn’t point me to professional purpose but I found my way after I moved to New York, NY and joined McKinsey & Company to work on digital transformation. The job was supposed to be a communications role but I never seem to stick within the confines of a job description. And why would you at a place like McKinsey? The Firm is an intellectual Disneyland, full of incredible experts on so many different topics. Lucky for me, I was there in the early days of McKinsey Design and the acquisition of brilliant design thinkers from Veryday and LUNAR. For years, I worked in my job description and I also bartered for new skills and opportunities by offering free labor to any timezone. It still amazes me how much knowledge people generously shared with me, or maybe it was my annoying persistence– we’ll never know. 

Eventually, I was ready to be challenged in new ways and test my skills in a new environment. After McKinsey, I joined an artificial intelligence product company as a Design lead. The product was being implemented at industry giants and governing bodies around the world with plenty of juicy problems to figure out. It was so much fun imagining the future and all its possibilities with a diverse team of designers, linguists, and engineers. The biggest lesson from that time was observing how easily and often fear can reconstruct good intentions into innovation theater. A lot of money and time was spent just to validate biases and old ideas, not challenge them. It is the exception to come across leaders who can establish and embody the psychological safety people need to successfully venture into those risky unknowns. It reminds me of what it takes to be a good athlete and coach— it’s all about the environment you create. Confidence and trust inspire greatness.

With that in mind, I started my own design studio in 2020. Our mission is to partner with people and organizations boldly pursuing new ideas without settling for less. You can have all the data, all the frameworks, and every methodology there is but creative confidence is the intangible ingredient making a difference. It is my calling to do work I believe in, to build people up, and launch them back into the world with renewed purpose and strength. This is my life’s work as a designer, as an athlete turned coach, and as a person. I’ve had my approach dismissed as “arts & crafts” but haters are a good sign that you’re onto something.