I came to communications by way of social psychology, teaching and an early lesson in what happens when good communication has to produce a real result.
I didn’t start college planning to become a communications professional. I studied psychology, with much of my research and teaching work focused on social psychology, and originally imagined a future in academia.
My first professional role took me into training, where I developed programs for young people and the professionals who served them. After September 11 changed the business environment, my boss challenged my colleague and me to start treating our work like our own business. Suddenly, I was writing grants, making sales presentations, reaching out to prospective clients and finding ways to bring former clients back.
It worked. My efforts led to two funded grants and helped restore relationships with clients who had previously stopped working with us. More importantly, I discovered something about myself: I had a talent for using words and ideas to persuade people and create an outcome.
I went back to school to develop that talent intentionally, earning a master’s degree in corporate and public communication. I especially loved organizational communication and business marketing—the places where communication, people and the needs of an organization come together.
One part strategy. One part communications. One part people.
That’s probably the simplest way to describe how I approach my work today.Strategy is the part of me that wants to understand the real problem before deciding what to do about it. I like questions, patterns and figuring out what’s underneath an initial ask.
Communications is my craft. I’ve spent more than 17 years developing it across nonprofit, government and corporate environments and applying it to everything from executive and internal communications to technology, transformation, sales and measurement.
People are why any of it matters. Long before I worked in communications, I was interested in how people think, behave and relate to one another. Today, that shows up in how I listen, facilitate, interview, translate, influence, and bring people along.
The subject matter keeps changing. I like that.
I’ve worked in supplier development, government procurement, global finance, restaurant technology, product launches, and automotive technology and sales. I wasn’t the subject-matter expert in most of those things when I arrived.
I’m comfortable with that.
I have a mind for complex things and the curiosity to keep asking questions until I understand them. Then I can figure out what someone else needs to know, why they should care and what they need to do next.
That combination has taken me through very different organizations and increasingly complex work. It’s also one of the things I still enjoy most about communications: there is always something new to understand.
