While judging a startup pitch competition in the summer of 2023, I was blown away by the potential of one of the startups, AnywhereCam. After speaking with the CEO, we agreed that I could use my skills to help AnywhereCam enter the B2B market and provide commercial clients with a video monitoring security solution. We are a fast growing company looking to scale up quickly with corporate clients, so please reach out if interested!

I founded Ally Arrow Apparel in 2023 to give straight people an authentic way to support the LGBTQ+ community. There are millions of straight people out there who would take a stand against hate if they personally identified with a means to do so, and the Ally Arrow brand aims to be just that.

With supply chain shortages disrupting seemingly every industry in 2022, and with the US responding by making it a strategic imperative to control its own manufacturing destiny in critical industries like semiconductors, aerospace, and medical devices, I joined Total Helium in an investor relations and business development capacity. In this role, I help raise investor awareness of Total Helium and grow the company through strategic acquisitions as we work to bring a stable, domestic supply of helium to the US market.

I returned to the private sector in 2019 when Mile High Labs offered me the role of Vice President of Business Development. I was so excited to join one of the highest profile companies in the brand new cannabis industry. At Mile High Labs, I helped the company grow by winning deals with DSM (the world’s largest ingredient company), Ocean Spray, a Fortune 20 retail client, and many other large, well known brands whose names I can’t disclose publicly. It had the true startup rollercoaster experience at Mile High Labs, but I learned an incredible amount as a result and loved being part of a great team. Doing my part in a business development role to drive growth and help the company secure tens of millions of dollars of financing was one of my greatest professional accomplishments to date.

My role at OEDIT changed in 2016 when I became a Global Business Development Manager. I was now responsible for recruiting companies to Colorado both domestically and internationally. This position carried a huge amount of responsibility. In a business development role for the state, I was competing with other states to win investment from corporations large and small. My role was to convince companies who were making important, long term, strategic investment decisions that Colorado was the right place for them to invest. I handled a diverse portfolio of industries, each of which I had to become an expert in. I was also responsible for taking companies through the complex tax incentive process and presenting tax incentive deals to the Economic Development Commission for approval. By the end of my time in the Governor's office, I had successfully closed on over $500 million worth of projects (CAPEX + tax incentives) for the state of Colorado.

I finally got my big break in 2015 when I was hired to be the Asia Pacific Manager for the State of Colorado. This was a dream job at the time. I got to lead a trade mission to China for Governor (now Senator) John Hickenlooper. I hosted visiting government delegations from all over Asia. I helped Colorado companies grow their exports to Asia. I was recruiting businesses from Asia to invest in Colorado. It was all Asia all the time, and I loved it.

After graduating from Hult, I moved back to the city where I grew up, Denver. Now that I was back in the US, this time with manufacturing experience and Chinese language skills, friends of friends started reaching out to me for help sourcing products from China. I decided to make a business out of it. I helped people overcome language barriers and bridge cultural gaps to find products and manufacturers in China.

Now that I had some true business experience, it was time to go get my MBA. I decided to take a chance on an up-and-coming business school, Hult. There, I gained the business skills I had lacked during my consulting days. I also made amazing connections with new friends from around the world. Hult is now ranked the #15 business school in the world by The Economist, so my gamble paid off in numerous ways.

I took my consulting business as far as I could with my psychology degree and no formal business training. When an opportunity presented itself to move to a new city and gain experience at a global manufacturing company in the auto industry, I jumped at the chance. With one month of manufacturing experience under my belt, I was sent to Japan to work with one of SMR’s biggest global clients, Nissan. Despite having no real manufacturing experience, my work with Nissan turned out great. With a team of eight employees reporting to me, we were able to reduce the targeted defects in our products by 98%. I got to spend my time bouncing back and forth between China and Japan while getting my first exposure to doing business with a Global 500 corporation.

As my first year in China came to a close, the US economy was in full meltdown. At the same time, China’s economy was booming. With my interest in business piqued for the first time by the Financial Crisis, I decided to start my own consulting company in China. I consulted on a wide range of things, but the service that really caught on was providing due diligence research to US based investors and research groups who needed intelligence on publicly traded Chinese companies. For the first time, I was responsible for business development and reporting to sophisticated, demanding clients. I can’t begin to tell you how much I learned by starting my own business in China. One thing I did learn was that, if I really wanted to succeed in business, I was going to need an MBA.

Having studied abroad on Semester at Sea during college, I couldn’t resist the urge to get back out into the world. Feeling good about having done my part to contribute to New Orleans’ recovery from Hurricane Katrina, I was ready for an adventure. I got a job teaching English and moved to China, just as the Financial Crisis was really ramping up. In Hangzhou, I was teaching test prep classes to college aged students who wanted to study abroad, but I was also learning Chinese, exploring Asia, and gaining valuable experience living and working in a foreign country.

Following Hurricane Katrina during my senior year of college, I wanted to do something to get the city I love the most back on its feet. I was privileged to be accepted into the highly selective TeachNOLA program. Teaching 7th and 8th grade history in inner city New Orleans as a fresh college grad remains the single most challenging thing I have ever done. Being responsible for the education of 80 kids was a huge responsibility for a 23 year old. By the end of the year, I was so proud to have helped two thirds of my students raise their standardized test scores on the end-of-year state-administered exam.