About Me
I work with leaders, creatives and changemakers who know there's more — who feel called to greater impact, deeper alignment, and authentic influence, but something inside or around them keeps them stuck.
I spent 20 years founding and leading organizations in Chicago, and for the last 12+ years I've coached mission-driven leaders and teams. Over that time I've come to focus on what I've seen matter most: the inside-out work. Strategy and structures matter, but they only go so far. Lasting change also takes clearing what's in the way — the beliefs you never chose, the misalignment, the overwhelm — so you can live and lead from what's true for you.
Where I come from
I grew up in East Germany under a system designed to suppress imagination and individual will. My mother, a single parent, raised me believing that everything was constrained. Until one day, after years of persistence, we received a letter: 24 hours to leave for West Germany.
That moment taught me something I've never forgotten: persistence aligned with vision moves mountains. But there was more to learn.
Immigration & Purpose Discovery
As a teenager in West Germany, society offered me a clear path: learn a trade, get a stable job, raise a family. The formula was safe. Predictable. Expected. But it didn't call to me.
What called to me was helping others discover their strength and build a world that reflected that possibility. So at an age when most people consolidate their roots, I did the opposite. I left everything familiar — the language, the culture, my family's expectations — and immigrated to the United States to pursue that calling.
The early years were hard. A new language. A different culture. The weight of starting over. But my passion kept driving me forward. I learned how to build powerful organizations that supported communities in creating better lives for themselves and their families. I've founded and led — both independently and in partnership — several award-winning organizations that trained hundreds of leaders and created measurable community impact.
The pressures were real, and some of them were never mine to fix. But I also saw that how I met them — the survival patterns, the beliefs I'd never examined, the habit of running on empty — shaped what I could build and how long I could keep building it. That part was within my reach.
That realization became the foundation for everything I do now as a coach.
My Philosophy: Inside-Out Transformation
Grounding
Getting clear on what's true for you right now — inside and around you.
Visioning
Giving yourself permission to want what’s most important to you, without fear and guilt doing the editing.
Creating
Taking aligned action, and building practices you can sustain.
This is the work I do: helping you see what’s true for you, get clear on what matters most, and act on it in ways you can sustain.
Impact & Recognition
The organizations I've led or co-led trained hundreds of adults and students to tap into their strengths as leaders. They created measurable community impact for tens of thousands of individuals and families. That work was recognized with the Do Something Brick Award — a national honor spotlighting young leaders under 30 (sponsored by Rolling Stone and MTV, awarded to 9 recipients from over 400 applicants).
But the greater recognition has been watching the individuals and organizations I've coached go from stuck to moving again, find the courage to go after something bigger, and build a legacy that's their own.
What's Possible Now
Whether you're navigating a major life or career transition, leading a mission-driven organization through complexity, or sensing there's more to discover about yourself and your work, the change you're looking for usually starts with the part you can influence: how you see your situation, what you believe is possible, and how you respond to what's in front of you.
I invite you to explore whether working together might be the next chapter of your growth.
