But, this is a bio, and you did click on it, so let me give me you quick bit about me. I am a born and raised Long Islander who grew up in an Irish-Italian-Catholic household in the shadow of New York City. I spent my college days at the University of Richmond in Virginia (that’s UR not UVA, thankyouverymuch), where I earned a degree in English Literature because I thought I was going to be a high school teacher (misguided). But, also found a love for live theater and earned the skills that led to my first career as a theatrical Stage Manager. Wrangling actors, directors, and designers as well as the complexity of any live event also put many of the techniques I now use as a coach in my toolkit. Particularly conflict resolution, productivity and organization, and overcoming fear or anxiety to build confidence.

 

Theatre bridged my transition back to the metro New York region, and some turns as a temp office worker-- a not uncommon cash earner between jobs for someone working in theater-- until I turned in my drama work in for a jaunt through corporate America. My temp work had taken me through several high visibility positions working for C-Suite executives at a large Financial Services Institution, including the Chief Diversity Officer. The idea that you could be employed at a corporation and work on equality, fairness, opportunity and education for all people was a watershed moment for me, and I jumped for that into my next career, into Supply Chain Diversity and Inclusion.

 

Supply Chain Diversity and Inclusion is a fascinating intersection of multiple business worlds. Your driver is diversity and inclusion, but your stakeholders are businesses-- the business you work for (in my case a large global bank), but also the businesses YOUR business needs to buy goods and services from, in order to keep their ‘doors open’, as it were. (This is known as Supply Chain, Strategic Sourcing, Procurement, or Purchasing depending on where you work.) The idea is for large corporations to do business with all sorts of different entities, including companies owned by minorities, women, veterans, disabled-persons, and LGBTQ+ individuals. The work is varied and inspiring from training colleagues in diversity related concerns, to coaching small businesses on succession planning, doing business with corporate entities, presentation or networking skills, among (lots of) other things. It is work that requires both deep sensitivity to people, and an ability to bring those people together but also the no nonsense down to business sense required to work at the size and scale of the global economy in an industry ‘too big to fail’. (No joke, ask me about working at a large bank DURING the financial meltdown. And let me say, I worked at a bank, not as a banker, in a sometimes thankless job designed to remind people of their better selves and to BE better, even when they didn’t want to.)

 

When, after more than a decade, my job was relocated to Florida I chose not go with it, for multiple reasons, and it was time to strike out on another new adventure. With a detour to skill up on a few more things related to coaching and running a business, I find myself here. The fire that has always brought me to all my work has always been helping people, in all sorts of ways- from bringing their vision to life, to surmounting fear, to navigating challenges, to accepting themselves (and others), and making change,  getting organized, getting focused on results, working together, building confidence, releasing resentments, showing up authentically, and the list goes on.

 

The new and exciting part is the work is no longer at the service of another secondary objective. Now, it is all the real deal. My work is about my clients, getting really clear about what they want, in their work, their family, their relationships, their whole lives,  and what I can do to support bringing their vision to life.