I am most interested in leadership, culture, and strategy and how each of these areas impact the other.

My experience in L&D has centered around leadership, culture, and strategy. I look at each of these as integrated into the work I do. Much of this has been shaped by building the learning strategy and ecosystem at The Bonadio Group from the ground up; where we are designing not just programs but the infrastructure that allows learning to scale. That has meant connecting indivdiual development to firm goals and building a learning continuum where learning follows someone from their first year through their path to partner.

I started as a team of one and built the learning function at The Bonadio Group over the past decade into a nine-person team with a genuine “seat at the table”. This was not always easy (and I still get put back into a “box” from time to time) and required a lot of work to get to where I am today, but the journey I have been on has taught me as much about leadership as any program I've ever designed, because earning credibility, influencing without authority, and making the case for people development as a strategic priority are all really leadership challenges before they're anything else. And I have quite literally lived this and built this at the same time.

The work I'm most proud of is our Future Leaders Academy, a multi-year program we built for high-potential principals in accounting on the path to partnership. The idea was pretty straightforward, don't wait until someone gets promoted to partner to develop them. Build the leadership identity, the strategic thinking, the business acumen, before they need it. Sixty-four leaders have come through the program in the past five years, with a 79% promotion rate and 86% retention among graduates. While the numbers are important, what I personally care about more is the leaders I've watched find their footing and grow into something they didn't know they were capable of.

Coaching is at the heart of how I lead and how I develop others. I believe the most powerful leadership development doesn't happen in a classroom; it happens in the conversations leaders are willing to have with the people around them that help them to grow into their best selves.