Introduction
EARLY YEARS
Born and raised in Apple Valley, Minnesota - I have always been someone who thought outside-of-the-box & had my eyes on a bigger vision for my life. I entered into entrepreneurship at a young age, with my own lawn mowing company, selling antiques and fashion on eBay, babysitting, and even launched my own jewelry company. At the age of 16, I entered into modeling. This path would forever alter the path of my life - meeting some amazing people who are forever family and learning so much about myself. I modeled all over the midwest from Minneapolis to Chicago then moved to LA for a short while to model at 19. While modeling I fell in love with photography, editing, and styling - soon working shoots and styling friends for local & national campaigns. My interest in photography eventually led me to being selected to have my photography featured in the Louvre Museum in Paris - that, I will say, is one of my most cherished memories.
CAREER YEARS
While the dreams of modeling were in the forefront of my interests, I also needed a consistent income to support myself. My first job was working for Lifetime Fitness - starting off as the company's first swim instructor. I worked for Lifetime for a few years in various locations around Minneapolis and eventually Chicago. I maintained a job in fitness when I moved to LA - working for Equinox before moving back to the Twin Cities when my sister got engaged where I went back to working for Lifetime Fitness. I loved working in Fitness - I met some great people there and it was so refreshing to be surrounded by people who all had a central interest in being healthy both mentally and physically.
When moving back to the Twin Cities at 20, most of my close friends had gone away to college while I was taking classes at a local community college. My solution to finding friends to go out with was getting into the nightclub industry - so I became a bottle server. I ended up working at a few locations in the Twin Cities as well as restaurants. I also met a lot of great people in this industry - one of which led me to a concierge at the luxury apartment building she lived in. She referred me and I got the job as a concierge which soon led to the role of a leasing agent. This role really intrigued me, I wanted to better understand what qualities these young professionals had who lived in these properties. I wanted to understand what skills I needed to obtain to live a life like them… to eventually become them. This was my goal - to live in a property as nice as theirs and be able to support myself like they could.
I met a lot of great people working here as well - I became the first face the future residents would see when they came in for tours, hosted monthly resident events for everyone to connect, and soon became friends with people in these buildings. I ended up working for various property management companies in the Twin Cities and enjoyed the role in real estate but soon there came a moment of feeling like I was hitting a ceiling. I knew I needed to make a change in order to go from leasing these apartments to living in these apartments.
One night at home, I was updating my Linkedin experience and listed that I was a seller on eBay - at this time I had moved from selling antiques to rehabbing high-end fashion and listing it on eBay. From that experience update, Linkedin popped open a ‘one-click’ job posting to apply for a role at eBay. Not thinking much of it, I clicked it and shut the laptop. The next day, I got a call from a hiring manager from eBay who was located in Utah - that day forever changed my life. This was the moment that shifted my career - fast forward a month and eBay moved me to Utah to work at their HQ2 in the seller acquisitions team with a focus on fashion acquisition. I loved my time at eBay - they felt like family. I worked there for over two years before a colleague of mine who lived in the Bay Area, transitioned to another role in Tech, and offered to submit me for a role at a tech company in the Bay. Through the changes happening at eBay, I made a hard decision to transition away from the company & was moved to the Bay Area to pursue a career in tech sales.
CURRENT LIFE
After four years and working for two tech start-ups, helping one go IPO and the second prepare for IPO, I was recruited to Salesforce to work in the large business, Enterprise division. I have been with my current company for nearly two years and have also met some great people here in the Bay Area through this career journey (nudge, nudge, my co-host Lo). I led some changes at the two previous companies and fostered my skills at Salesforce. I am grateful for the experiences I have been through with every company - some pits and peaks that have taught me alot about myself and my abilities.
After moving through these roles - I had a full circle moment realization that upon signing with my role at Salesforce, I looked around at my life and realized “I did it.” I am working in a top-tier city, at a top-tier role, with top-tier talent and pursuing the roles that the same people who lived in my luxury properties had. I had many trials along the way, many moments I considered throwing in the towel and walking away from the struggle to get to where I am today - and these are all things I hope I can help other people with.
I had big dreams, with no roadmap, only a hope in myself and determination that I could do it. I am hoping my story inspires others - I’m hoping my learnings teach you that even if one person says no, you will find a yes.
FREE TIME
In my free time, you can usually find me working out, thrifting, traveling, baking, playing tennis, going to an art museum, or spending time with friends/family.
Lately I have been interested in learning new things - I am considering signing up for sewing classes at a local college and learning to horseback ride. I’ve found that I find happiness in pushing myself out of my comfort zone - always open to new suggestions of fun weekend activities!
PERSONAL HIGHLIGHTS
When I was more heavily involved in the fashion industry, my styling and photography was featured in variety of press and publications included below:
MITH MAGAZINE
LOUVRE MUSEUM
WCCO NEWS
KARE 11 NEWS
PIONEER PRESS
EBAY'S BLOG
STAR TRIBUNE