My Story

When I was eight years old, my family was living in Nairobi, Kenya, where my father was doing research. I attended the International School of Kenya, which was located at the time, at the end of a dirt road that wove through a coffee plantation. As we neared the school each morning, we drove past a small gathering of mud and thatched huts. Probably the homes of coffee pickers and their families. I’d often see children outside the huts, in torn clothing and without shoes. For an eight-year-old, this was a stark lesson in the social and economic advantages that I had as part of a wealthy ex-pat family.

Fast forward 40+ years, and I found myself in a classroom near Maseru, Lesotho, also on a dirt road. There was no electricity, and most kids were lucky if they got one meal a day. The teachers pooled their money to make this happen. I was working in Microsoft Education and had dropped in on one of our innovative teachers at this school. Despite the circumstances, this teacher found a way to inspire her learners using a single laptop to allow them to analyze data from small experiments around the school. She’d use the computer until the battery ran out each day, then charged it at home and brought it in the next day. This taught me that innovation – and learning – can happen in even the most basic circumstances.

I don’t know what ever happened to the kids I saw in Kenya and Lesotho, but the chances are many of them have faced a lot more hardship than I have. Sadly, many may have grown up to be marginalized, economically disadvantaged, and most likely to feel the adverse effects of war, climate change, and inequality. I try to work every day to prevent these cycles from repeating themselves by helping companies, foundations and NGOs build effective environmental and social impact programs.

I’ve worked across a variety of industries and sectors in more than 50 countries and have seen firsthand the importance of cross-collaboration in solving some of the biggest challenges facing people and the planet. This is true, whether one is finding ways to get more women involved in farming in Kenya, finding solutions to homelessness in Seattle, or defining a company’s ESG strategy.

I love to build and work with high-performing, values-driven teams that bring a multitude of backgrounds together to solve big problems.