MEET THE TEAM

I believe in the power of work. I am passionate about the ability of quality work to change lives, build economies, strengthen peace and reduce conflict. As the Founder and past CEO of Upwardly Global, I saw how professionals from more than 105 countries were able to fit into the US workforce, opening up new business and customer opportunities for companies and organizations.

My passion is to create projects in response to challenges. What gets me going is setting up teams and designing solutions that work and count.  I run Wow!Labs, an innovation studio I co-founded in 2012 that creates results for businesses, universities and cities. We collaborate all over the world with the private sector, cities, governments, universities and the third sector to create contexts for innovation to emerge. Our passion is for creating unique environments that leverage the particular strengths of the culture we’re working with.  We also initiate projects where there is opportunity for strong impact: we set up private-public partnerships and round up co-investors to take ventures off the ground and grow them as autonomous projects.

Economic resiliency is a cornerstone of healthy societies for individuals, communities, cities, and countries.  I have focused much of my career on strengthening the fabric of workforce and labor systems to create a more equitable world for various stakeholders.  As the first COO of Upwardly Global to leading my own consulting practice on capacity building for the social sector, I strongly believe in investing in foundation building, cross-sectoral partnerships and empowerment of often invisible actors in our society.