Professional Journey
I was part of the original founding team who conceptualized the Kiva.org platform and helped launch it publicly in 2005. We built a mission-driven organization from the beginning, creating a true force for good in the world.
We established Kiva’s mission, vision & values, forging partnerships, developing the brand, shaping culture, sitting on the senior management team, setting strategy, navigating tricky board politics, leading in crisis management, growing consensus internally and externally, building community, recruiting and hiring talent, motivating big and small teams, overseeing large operating budgets, mentoring and coaching entrepreneurs, traveling to remote corners of the globe, speaking on stages around the world and ultimately managing 100+ staff and interns. Our shared passion and collective commitment to social justice was one of the most exciting things I've experienced in my life.
Prior to Kiva, I was a Corporate Recruiter and Immigration Specialist with Barclays Global Investors. Navigating the corporate world for many years before moving to the non-profit space provided me with a solid foundation in interpersonal relations, business strategy and everything in between. I graduated with a bachelor’s degree in Psychology from Santa Clara University and I am Mastery Method Certified in Transformational Coaching, Social Performance Management, Framework for Reporting/Analysis/Monitoring/ Evaluation (FRAME), Behavioral Interviewing/Talent Selection, Risk Management Strategies, and Human Resources Management.
Why did I make the switch to Coaching?
After I welcomed my daughter in 2020 at the start of a global pandemic, I knew I had the opportunity to realign my priorities and I questioned whether my career was heading in a direction that still felt fulfilling. While I loved the impact my work was having in the world, I came to miss witnessing first-hand the growth of the entrepreneurs we were supporting. I realized that the thing that brought me the greatest joy was the opportunity I had to coach, mentor and support hundreds of colleagues, some of them quite deeply, because it was a direct partnership. It became something I consistently received praise and appreciation for. So, I started coaching on the side and what started out as a passion project has evolved into my dream career.
I completed a year-long certification in the Mastery Method through the Institute for Coaching Mastery (ICM), a program accredited by the International Coaching Federation (ICF). I consider myself an eternal student in this work and will always be looking for opportunities to deepen my knowledge in how to be of service to my clients.
I love this profession because it’s an honor to witness my client’s courage to look within. I believe that, by collectively doing our inner work, we can raise the vibration of the planet. This gives me hope.
Why Coaching and not Therapy?
I’m a huge fan of Psychotherapy and I’ve been working with a masterful Therapist for years. I believe there is a place for both but I enjoy that Coaching is more action-oriented. They are not mutually exclusive. Put simply, Therapy is about digging into the past to inform why we are the way we are, while Coaching is about consciously living into your future.
When Coaching, I’m not a Therapist or a Friend. I’m a thought partner, supporter, advocate, your biggest cheerleader and an accountability partner. We get specific with goals at the start of our time and monitor progress and alignment throughout. We do explore where your outdated programming came from, but all under the goal of moving you forward into concrete changes and practices that support your best self. It’s about both gaining awareness AND moving to action.
Other formative life experiences
I have visited over 30 countries, many of them remote corners of the globe through my work with Kiva.org. I was in Thailand when the tsunami struck in 2004 so I stayed to do relief work with the Thai Red Cross. Disillusioned coming home after such a moving experience, I took an internship in Cape Town, South Africa, where I worked at Fikelela Children’s Center in a township called Khayelitsha. This was ultimately the work that brought me to Kiva as I fell in love with microfinance as a way of empowering small business entrepreneurs through lending. I’m Thai massage certified, enjoy guided spiritual journeys and have completed yoga and mindfulness trainings in Goa, India and Bali, Indonesia.
I believe that only by stepping into our own power can we help others to do the same.
My Story
I spent much of my adult life in what I call the “should box” but didn’t even know I was trapped. The walls of it were built with other people’s stories about what leads to a successful happy life:
#1 finding your “Who”: a loving and committed partner and children, #2 your “Where”: a place to call home, and#3 your “What”: purpose-driven work.
This became my life’s mantra. In my 20’s I found the first chapter of my “What,” my purpose work, but the “Who” and “Where” parts remained elusive. Without a lifelong partner, it felt like there could be no such thing as a family or a home. I was in a state of constantly seeking to complete my checklist, never fully settling into the abundance of what I had. My childhood home and family remained a touchstone and refuge for me, but then when I was 34, my mother passed away. I spent years grieving the loss of her - and realized I had also begun to grieve the life I had been trying hard to construct for so many years - a life of “shoulds” that I had told myself was the ideal, a life I thought my mom had also wanted for me too. I felt defeated, deeply buried in grief and longing.
That low point became my turning point. Through years of reflection and personal work, I began to shed my attachment to the life I believed I was supposed to live. I began to see the beauty of forging one's own path, no matter if it means going against the grain and choosing the unknown - in fact, especially then. I made the powerful choice to pursue what, underneath all the shoulds, I discovered my heart was most yearning for: More than anything else I longed to be a mother, on my own terms, with or without a life partner or the idealized family I’d been taught to desire. I learned and finally believed: I am all I need. From this place of power and completeness, I envisioned a path that no longer felt like a diversion, like I was turning my back on a singular kind of love story I’d over-glorified all my life, but instead my true path. It looked like no one else’s I’d ever known. And not only didn’t it need to, it made the path that much more my own.
My choice to become a mother unlocked my entire life view and opened up possibilities I couldn’t have dreamed about from within my “should” box. I have since made career and relationship changes that now honor my deepest longings and bring me closer, step by step, to consciously living a life that feels more aligned to who I’m meant to be.
Accordingly, this chapter of purpose-centered work is to support others in finding their unique paths like I have. I believe this is my calling. My natural abilities, now paired with years of training and experience supporting individuals one-on-one, have uniquely prepared me to work with people ready to open their minds to a more expansive way of living. Of course, I’m especially passionate about guiding those who, like me, feel ready to explore an unconventional path in parenthood, partnership, or professional fulfillment, finding their way to a deeper purpose by paving their own unique way.
Liberating myself from the stories and constructs that trapped me for so long has undoubtedly been my life's hardest but most rewarding work. It takes courage, a willingness to sit with discomfort, and a boldness to face one’s deepest fears, but inevitably the growth process leads to a more abundant existence: the freedom to break free from the “should” box and claim your Choice Life.
“If you're always trying to be normal, you will never know how amazing you can be.”
— Maya Angelou
Living my Choice Life
What is a Choice Life and how am I living mine?
My parents' love story was beautiful and set me on a path of having high expectations. Expectations are a form of control and, for many years, I tried to control the narrative based on what I was taught mattered.
Choosing the unknown path in founding a nonprofit when I felt pressure to go back to school or take a corporate job. Choosing to become a mother on my own and going against the grain in how I was raised (and what society told me was the way a family should look). Choosing an unconventional partnership even though I know some may feel judgment about the nature of our relationship. These are examples of how I’ve learned to live into my Choice Life in parenthood, partnership and purpose.
Where am I now?
I’m a single mom by choice, otherwise known as a Choice Mom, living in Oregon with my daughter, Kaia Lyn. I love to dance, sing in the shower and am always on a quest for unusual heart-thumping beats that stir my soul. I love wrist rolls, uninhibited laughter, the sound of singing birds and rolling waves, scuba diving, yoga, aerial vistas, boats and being in community. I’m happiest in nature and get most excited about traveling to new places and learning about cultures unlike my own.
