Leadership is a Practice, Not a Title.

My journey into leadership didn't start in a boardroom. It started behind a counter at Duff's Dogs — a family-run fast-food business in Chicago that my parents, siblings, and I launched with no prior industry experience. What we lacked in expertise, we made up for in determination, adaptability, and a belief that family could accomplish anything together.

Those early lessons — listening to customers, adapting quickly, and building operational excellence from the ground up — became the foundation of how I lead today. From there, I spent over 18 years in corporate America, leading technology and project management initiatives at Walgreens, driving strategic growth at Underwriters Laboratories, and serving as COO of MOXFIVE through a period of rapid expansion and significant private equity investment.

Today, I serve as the Director of the Go-to-Market PMO at HighLevel, where I lead strategic program management across one of the fastest-growing SaaS platforms in the industry. Alongside my executive work, I teach project management and leadership at Purdue Global and Concordia University Chicago, and I write about the intersection of strategy, culture, and authentic leadership.

My doctoral research at Concordia confirmed what I had learned in practice: the most effective leaders apply transformational principles — inspiring, empowering, and developing the people around them — rather than simply managing tasks. That conviction runs through everything I do.