About Me
Turning Challenges Into Shared Purpose
I’ve been known to get genuinely excited about org charts. Not for the power they represent, but for the puzzle they reveal about how humans try to get things done—or, more often, how we get in our own way.
I’m a civic strategist, advisor, and recovering banker who helps institutions remember why they exist and align their operations accordingly. Most recently, I led San Francisco’s mayoral transition: 62 days to make sense of a 30,000+ person government, build the infrastructure for a new leadership team, align 70+ department heads who had never worked as a unified group, and figure out how to fund and plan an inauguration no one had prepared for. It was chaos with a purpose—my favorite kind of work.
These days, I advise public sector leaders and mission-driven organizations on the unglamorous but essential work of structural alignment. I help teams clarify their purpose, redesign operating models, and build accountability systems that actually reflect their values.
I’m most drawn to projects and people aiming to solve big problems or inspire in big ways, where I can play a combined operating and creative role, encouraging teams to think bigger and be braver. I do this across geographies but work best when I know a place well. I spend most of my time in San Francisco and Milwaukee and take on larger projects where my experience can add the most value.
The Path Here
My career began in the machinery of public finance. At the New York City Economic Development Corporation, I was three blocks from the World Trade Center on September 11th, about to present to the board on incentives for the Sir Norman Foster renovation of the Hearst Building.
Working on New York’s post-9/11 recovery clarified that I am at my best when working with high-integrity people on public impact work. I stayed in New York through the recovery, working on state banking regulation and eventually at Citigroup. These roles taught me the importance of principled leadership—and how to think about the scale of opportunities institutions can offer when they are working well.
In 2007, I moved to San Francisco to seek new ways to create impact. I explored design thinking, storytelling, and what a better financial service might look like (hint: banks have been trying to offer household services for years; I took a stab at it with Good Money). I even built an app called "Hi, I Love You." Despite living in the Bay Area, I’m not a software person. Eventually, I found my way back to institutions, now with new tools.
At California College of the Arts, I was first invited to recreate an economics curriculum. I ultimately chaired the MBA in Design Strategy program (affectionately called the DMBA), where we taught business through the lens of ethics and systems thinking. My students learned to build financial models that included human costs, design services that actually served people, and lead with both analytical rigor and creative courage.
My classroom philosophy was simple: learn by doing, focus on what matters, and remember that strategy should include empathy. If you aren’t willing to build a working prototype, you aren’t serious about change. We sent students into communities to test ideas, fail safely, and learn that leadership means creating structures where others can do their best work.
Get To Know Me
My mom is an artist, and my dad is an accountant. I grew up mostly in Milwaukee, spending summers commuting to visit my dad in Houston (not a commute I recommend). My sister and I like to say we were “raised by place,” lucky to have strong schools and active grandparents who helped shape us. I was the first grandchild on both sides, and I soaked up the attention. My maternal grandparents worked in factories and had a bar in their basement (which is why I play pool left-handed—they were fun).
Everything I learned about work, I learned by doing. I’m not quite a first-generation college graduate, but I was the first in my family to go away to a four-year college and the first to attend graduate school (I loved going to night school with my dad before kindergarten). My first job was a paper route at 12. In college, I worked three jobs simultaneously to afford studying abroad.
I fell in love with political science and economics in college and graduate school, discovering that understanding how people make big decisions together for the public good helped me make sense of the world—and see a place for myself in it. Democracy felt accessible.
I found design and placemaking when I realized that having the “right answers” in a spreadsheet or slide deck wasn’t enough to get people to act. That discovery expanded into culture and democracy work. Now, all of these experiences, toolkits, and decades of relationships sit side-by-side in search of good causes.
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I believe in the radical possibility of well-designed institutions: places where values drive decisions, where accountability creates freedom, and where the inside matches the outside. That’s when the magic happens.
The Quick Version
​Loves: Hometowns, self-care, old friends, naps
Secret superpower: Dyslexia, I draw spreadsheets
Soundtrack: Spotify Radio playlists forever
Most used tools: Queen of the paper planner and favorite writing implements
Core belief: Think Like a We (Learn More)
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