My career path has been challenging, unexpected, and rewarding. I’ve served as a founder, a consultant, an advisor, and a Board of Directors member. I’ve founded both an unsuccessful business venture and a successful non-profit, worked in massive multi-national corporations and early- and growth-stage VC-backed startups. I've been laid off, low-balled, and have had to navigate toxic workplace politics. I chose an untraditional path for post-graduate education, learned what fuels me professionally, and have both slogged away doing menial admin tasks and been in the room with some of the most powerful people in my industry. And I’m still figuring out what I want to do when I "grow up".
A bit about my background, I graduated with a degree in marketing and global management, thinking I would go into the hospitality industry as a brand manager. It turns out I didn't actually like marketing in practice. So, with no educational background in healthcare or technology, I was thrown into the deep end of health tech when I became an implementations consultant working on the front lines in hospitals right next to doctors and nurses. I took everything that came my way as a learning experience and was promoted quickly until I got to an executive level IT strategy consulting role at a large corporation. The career plateau that came next was one of the largest struggles I had to face in my young career, and I think that a lot of people in their early- to mid-twenties may be experiencing this. I decided to pursue my education and, while still working full-time, got a masters degree from Penn School of Medicine in Healthcare Innovation. During this degree program, I moved to a venture-backed startup which doubled in size in my first year there. Dealing with the realities of what this meant not just for the business but for the job I was doing was another massive challenge, and I ended up leaving to start my next adventure. I am currently in the very early stages of building a business, while taking a much-needed break from the working world.
I get a tremendous amount of satisfaction mentoring young people through my university’s post-grad programs, as well as my own family members and other young professionals. I think a big reason for this is that a lot of the “influencers” giving advice are impractical for a professional environment (corporate and startup), and interviews with successful people such as Fortune 500 CEOs rarely give insight into actionable steps for young people to take in their careers. My approach is to be transparent and honest, and lean on my own experience to give examples of how you might want to (or not want to) approach certain topics. I hope to be able to create a space for college students and early career professionals to feel comfortable in uncertainty and in exploring their interests.
I also have a great network who are looking for bright folks to help bring new perspectives, and I’m always happy to make the connection.