My mom grew up dirt poor on a farm in Korea and didn’t get to go to school past the third grade because she had to help her family work the land. Despite her lack of a formal education, my mom is one of the smartest, hardest working people I know, but I saw the ways her limited education also limited her opportunities. That was a huge driving force for me wanting to pursue a career in education- and to ensure that my students’ zip codes didn’t determine their destinies the way it had for my mom. Although I left high school knowing that I wanted to be a high school English teacher, an error in my advisement my senior year had me doing student teaching under the class code “education internship,” which resulted in me being ineligible to receive my teaching certificate. I wound up teaching in Korea for one year after graduation and moved to Brooklyn a year later, working 3 jobs while I figured out how I could land a teaching job without my certificate. I saw an ad on the subway for the New York City Teaching Fellows (an alternative certification program), and based on that transcript technicality, I was eligible to apply (certified teachers were not). I was accepted and not only got to start teaching right away for the NYCDOE; I also earned a Masters of Science from Pace University for FREE! I like to share this story to remind people that we (and God) can “Kintsugi” our lives…that we can take something that “broke” us at one time and transform it into something that makes us stronger, more beautiful and more valuable.

I have two origin stories- perhaps three.
The original catalyst to my business was feeling the crushing pressure of being in the “sandwich generation.” In March 2017, my mother was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, and my son was almost two, and I decided I needed more flexibility to prioritize my family. I let the board of the school that I was a principal/CEO of know that they would need to find my replacement because even though I didn’t have a job lined up or a “Plan B,” I did still have a mortgage for which I was the primary contributor. I decided to start an educational consulting company, announced it on social media and had a former colleague reach out, offering to hire me to be an instructional coach for his English department three days per month. Within a few months, my three days increased to about eight days per month, and I wound up exceeding my principal salary within my first year of full time entrepreneurship. After a few years of having a thriving business, COVID-19 literally eviscerated it down to ZERO in a weekend. It took me six grueling months to pivot and profit, but I did so by partnering with my BFF since second grade (who was a former corporate health & wellness executive) and creating a joint venture in fall of 2020 providing Wellness, Inclusion, Diversity & Equity support, focused on creating inclusive cultures, centering workforce well-being and strengthening women’s leadership. We generated six figures in nine months and have continued to grow our footprint and scope of impact. Then in January of 2022, I expanded into entrepreneurial consulting as a result of being in virtual entrepreneurial communities and discovering that I had a knack for translating entrepreneurs Zones of Genius into a signature framework that could allow them to create more successful, scalable and sustainable businesses by leveraging their intellectual capital over their human capital. Although this leg of my business is very tertiary, it has still generated over six figures- but more importantly, it has helped many BIPOC and female entrepreneurs to increase their impact, influence and income.