I audited companies, managed the funding behind clinical trials at Kaiser Permanente, ran operations for a transportation company, and spent years getting police, fire, and EMS agencies to work better together. Then ten years connecting young people across countries that don't always talk to each other. Different worlds, same starting question: what's really going on here.

I joined the Aspen Institute as a budget manager and left ten years later as Executive Director of its flagship global initiative. I didn't have the background that role usually goes to. I ran it through a pandemic and three administrations, with government funders on two sides of the Atlantic and programming that reached across the globe. We had plenty of plans. Most stopped fitting reality within a few months. What mattered was whether people would tell me what was really happening.

Almost all of it has been on teams of five to twenty. It's my favorite size to work at. You can see the whole engine and know where you sit, and how your part really makes a difference.

I grew up in the Midwest. I got my MBA from the University of Maryland in 2010. I'm training for my first belt in jiu jitsu, and I recently taught myself to resurface cabinets.