Before I entered the professional design world, I worked in hospitality—bartending and serving everywhere from dive bars to fine dining to comedy clubs. Spending years working with such a wide range of people taught me how to listen, read a room, adapt quickly, and understand that what people say they want isn’t always the whole story. I also learned that I thrive in fast-paced environments and under pressure. 

Alongside the service industry I made sign art for local businesses. A friend once compared me to a border collie because I am constantly looking for a job to do or something to learn; I took this as a great compliment (I love border collies). The sign art was a fun creative outlet, but eventually I wanted something more complex—something that combined creativity with problem solving and had the potential to make a bigger impact.

This is when I began working with my first startup. As my role grew from early creative work into leading the product’s redesign, I realized that product design gave all this curiosity somewhere useful to go. My instinct to understand the how and why translated naturally into thinking about the product, the business, and how all the pieces worked together.