Bold Sobriety is an effort to end addiction and heal trauma. We address addiction, recovery, and healing trauma. I have a podcast in the works and I’ll let you know when it’s launching. In the meantime, I’d love to start the conversation on social. Please follow along on: Facebook: facebook.com/boldsobriety Instagram: Instagram.com/boldsobrietyTwitter: twitter.com/boldsobrietyTikTok: tiktok.com/@boldsobrietyFor many of us, trauma reshaped how we feel about ourselves. Trauma leads to guilt. Guilt leads to shame. And shame rewrites our stories about who we are telling us that there’s something wrong with us - that perhaps we’re worthless. And many of us turn to drinking, drugs, gambling, sex, food, gaming, the internet - name the addiction - to escape painful pasts and feelings, robbing us of our dignity and humanity. In the upcoming podcasts, I’ll share my experience with recovering from alcohol addiction and healing trauma in the hopes that it will help others uncover their true nature. To remember that child within us that was filled with hopes, dreams, awe, and wonder. We’ll delve into addiction in general, different paths to recovery, and recognizing and healing from trauma. And this is just the beginning - I want to hear from you what topics you’d like to explore. Thank you for joining me for Bold Sobriety, an effort to end addiction and heal trauma. Together.

Founded and led management consultancy with deep strategy expertise and hands-on operating experience helping grow profitable and sustainable businesses. Practice areas included fractional CMO leadership, growth and brand strategy, and customer insights and experience. Had up to six employees and a bench of talented consultants and contractors. Responsibilities included managing business development and marketing, talent acquisition and management, budget management, and more.

I was an executive on a team that accomplished what many people said was impossible - raising capital for and selling a communication solution into government. There’s a Harvard Business case study on the challenges we faced forging a path in a space most avoid. GovDelivery is now the de facto way government communicates with citizens, with clients that include the FBI, CDC, the Dept of State, and countless state and local government entities, to name a few. The company achieved a successful exit in 2009 and again in 2016 for investors. It is now merged under Granicus. I was responsible for aligning marketing and sales strategies with company revenue objectives. I built a team, repositioned GovDelivery brand and service offering, built a demand generation engine, and evolved sales model to include inside sales, resulting in a 500% increase in state and local sales and 260% increase in overall company revenue.

Drawn by the allure of the early 2000's .com boom and wanting to pivot into marketing leadership, I joined this well-funded early stage Software as a Service company. Gearworks was a pioneer in GPS-based mobile workforce management applications and was one of the first-to-market when Nextel launched a rugged GPS enabled phone. The company was acquired by Xora, Inc. 2009. My responsibilities evolved from marketing execution to strategic roles in marketing, business development, and sales. I developed and executed marketing strategy for new product launch and bootstrapped Nextel reseller channel strategy generating 85% of sales pipeline. I developed sales territory and generated over 40% of FY03 revenue, earning recognition as top sales person. I also lead the company's Salesforce implementation.

I led market research on a cross-functional team that developed the Nature Valley Chewy Trail Mix that was recognized at the time as the most successful launch in the brand’s 26-year history resulting in business unit growth of 38%. I quickly became known for my innovative approach to gathering consumer insights. I developed and executed a ground-breaking, highly visible consumer segmentation study used as the strategic framework for evaluating new snack product opportunities. I received a prestigious company award, the Snacks Bear Award, for my contributions.

I always loved photography, was on the Northwestern Year Book staff, and took every photography class I could, but never seriously considered it as a career. I had told people my entire life I was going to med school. And then I decided that wasn't what I wanted to do next, but what did I want to do? I didn't have any mentors at the time for career guidance and let's be real, I pretty much knew everything at that age so I wasn't great at asking for help. I was clear that I wasn’t cut out for working in a microbiology lab, one of my jobs in undergrad. As luck would have it, a dear friend asked me to photograph her wedding. I really love it and it must have gone well because they've been married 25 years and we're still best friends. After my friend's wedding, I took a deep breath and decided I was going to start my own photography business. I worked for another photographer for a summer to get more experience before going off on my own. I wrote a business plan and hoofed it around town pitching various banks to secure a loan to buy equipment. As a new graduate, my Hasselblad and Nikon gear were my collateral and interest rate ended up being in the high teens. I quickly established myself as one of the premiere photojournalistic wedding photographers in the Twin Cities. I also and decided to go back to school to get my MBA. I continued doing wedding photography through MBA school and into my first post-MBA jobs, helping me pay for graduate school.