At 15, I was already spending my time in a bone marrow transplantation research lab in New York City — serious, rigorous, real-stakes work alongside a renowned researcher from the Netherlands focused on patients with lymphoma. I was lucky to have that kind of exposure so early. It fostered a love of problem-solving and a drive for excellence that became the through-line of everything that followed. I loved math and was the kind of person who genuinely enjoyed spending 15 hours on a single calculus problem and considered that a good day. Those values and that relentless spirit to face any challenge head-on eventually took me to Harvard on full scholarship, where I studied alongside some of the brightest young minds in the world.
When the opportunity to study global health in Kenya came along, I traded textbook problems for real ones. Access to clean water and medical care. Resources for orphanages and childcare centers. Seeing those challenges up close in real communities permanently changed how I think about complexity and all the lenses one must look through to solve a problem. It didn’t all go according to plan. I contracted a mosquito-borne illness abroad that created lingering health effects and ultimately pulled me away from Harvard. Back home, I did what I apparently always do — researched, tested, and iterated my way to answers when traditional medicine couldn’t provide them, until I made a full recovery.
Years later, after starting a family and raising young children, I found a new outlet for the same restless energy: entrepreneurship. I discovered I had a natural gift for helping founders bring order to complexity. My methodical nature and genuine curiosity turned out to be exactly what the work demanded — building systems, creating structure, keeping multiple priorities moving without losing the thread. That work evolved steadily into the fractional operations work I do today. The problems look different from a research lab or a Kenyan classroom, but my approach has never changed: understand deeply, question everything, and build something that actually works.