I grew up in poverty and started selling magazines door-to-door in my neighborhood before most kids had their first homework assignment. I didn't know it then, but that early hustle taught me something that has shaped everything I have built since: the ability to walk up to a stranger, read the room in three seconds, and make a genuine connection. I have been doing a version of that ever since, just with higher stakes and better shoes.

Over the past 25+ years, I have built a career that does not fit neatly into a box, and I have made peace with that. I have been a marketer, a sales enablement leader, a DEI consultant, an executive coach, a program architect, a facilitator, and a founder. One of my favorite managers once called me a "utility player" — the soccer term for someone who can step into any position and make the team better. That stuck, because it is true. I can define the strategy and do the work. I can sit in the boardroom and build trust with the newest employee on the floor. I can design the curriculum and own the room when it is time to deliver it.

That versatility is a superpower…and occasionally a liability. I am infinitely curious, relentlessly creative, and I get bored once I have mastered something. It is why I have changed direction more than once, and why each pivot has made me a more complete professional. I do not regret any of it.

But I have also learned something important about myself: I do my deepest, most meaningful work when I am fully invested in a single organization. I am most proud when I am building something that outlasts my involvement.

Five years of building Cultivate Empathy taught me what I am genuinely exceptional at. I am ready to bring that to a company I believe in, not as a consultant who parachutes in and leaves, but as a leader who stays, grows, and makes the organization measurably better over time.