I moved to Asheville thinking I might stay a year, maybe two. Just checking it out. I had moved from Chicago, a city I loved, but knew it was time to leave. I still had friends and family there but lacked a real connection to the city. I brought my job with me to Asheville, but within a year a department-wide reorganization left me without a role.

Then Hurricane Helene hit. No water. No power. And the small business owners in my neighborhood opened their doors. Not because they had plenty to give. They didn't. They opened them anyway.

That's when Asheville became my city. I was inspired. I felt connected. I activated.

I volunteered as much as possible, giving back my time. I collected funds from family and friends out of state and gave those funds back to the local business owners who inspired me.

They weren't thinking about revenue or competitive advantage. They were thinking about their neighbors. That's who they are when it counts.

And honestly, it's when I knew I was done building systems for large corporations where you couldn't feel the impact of the work.  

When Tina and Alan talked to me about an opportunity at Liberated Leaders, I already knew why this work mattered. These are the people worth showing up for.

It started before any job title. In high school, I was a shy girl on a dance team building a legacy — and a coach named Kevin who saw something in me before I did. The Chicago Bulls were on their second championship run and Kevin was deeply inspired by Phil Jackson. Every time Kevin wanted to push us, he'd draw a line between what we were doing and what Jackson was building on that court. He taught me what it actually takes to build a team that works together and wins. That was my first real lesson in what success looks like from the inside.

I studied industrial engineering in college, did my internships in factories, and learned quickly that becoming a plant manager — the apex of that path — was not where I wanted to head. What I wanted was independence, variety, people, and work that kept moving. So I joined Accenture.

I spent over twenty years there. Started in consulting doing project-based work, which is exactly where I thrived. Eventually moved into internal HR, where I led a global recruiting team before remote work had a playbook. My customers were recruiters. I sat with them, listened to what was getting in their way, and my team figured out how to use technology to help them do their jobs better. We were building the systems that hired close to a hundred thousand people a year, across the world, rarely in the same room.

The through line across all of it: I build systems. I optimize things. I make complex operations run like they should.

That's what I bring to Liberated Leaders. While Tina and Alan are in the room with business owners, I'm making sure everything behind the scenes runs smoothly so that business owners can thrive.

Dance has never really left me. It shows up in hip hop fitness classes, in the Argentine tango I learned with Alan, in any room where there's choreography to learn and people to move with. The joy it brings hasn't changed since high school. Just the venue.

When I'm not dancing, I'm usually outside. Asheville is the right place for that. Hiking, backpacking, camping — getting back into nature is how I reset. Sunsets and sunrises from Blue Ridge Mountain tops never get old, no matter how many I've seen. That John Denver sure knew what he was talking about.

And then there's travel. Alan and I love to explore, whether that's somewhere across the country or across the world. We've been fortunate to live, work, hike, and enjoy life in other cultures, which has helped me continue to map my desired future.

Here's what's funny about all of it: the same instincts I bring to Liberated Leaders show up everywhere else too. Planning a trip, mapping out a week of meals, figuring out the most efficient way to pack a car full of camping gear — I'm optimizing without even realizing it. Someone usually has to point it out before I notice I'm doing it.

It's just how I'm wired.