People & Operations
Resources for Humans
Engaging employees through programming.
Recognizing success and excellence.
Allocating resources to support employees.
Designing benefits to match employee needs; understanding the difference between perks and benefits.
Asking employees what kinds of benefits would be most valuable; not assuming employees’ benefit needs.
Educating employees about available benefits; offering resources is not valuable if employees are not benefitting from them.
Anticipating employee needs across life stages and providing community-building opportunities that are inclusive.
Growing and Supporting Diversity
Managing change requires tracking the success of intended impact.
Beyond setting a roadmap and designing diversity programming: learning from unsuccessful initiatives, asking for feedback, translating failure into success, designing thoughtful surveys for actionable data.
Allocating resources to support ongoing commitment to diversity, and avoiding the virtue signaling trap.
Building mentorship programs that support promotion within the organization.
Inclusive Learning
What does technical, emotional, social, and growth-oriented learning look like?
Designing programming for different kinds of learners.
Anticipating accessibility needs and integrating accessibility as a core value.
Developing Leadership
Dispelling the myth of the “natural leader.”
Promotion is not the same as leadership.
Overcoming the inequalities that bias leadership development.
Teaching leaders how to have difficult conversations and practice active listening.
About
With experience in operations and design-thinking, I aim to create environments and strategies that facilitate productivity, efficiency, knowledge transfer, and high-quality workplace culture for people with specialized skillsets. Empathy and creativity drive my approach to problem solving, human resources, knowledge management, and programming.
People Operations is a holistic approach to the community of people that make up a company or an organization. It includes considering the unique assets each person brings to their role, matching resources to growth areas, identifying opportunities to develop leadership, and the ongoing evaluation of the success of DEI programming and initiatives.
Work Highlights
Freelance
2020 to Present
As a Design and Media Consultant, my projects include designing accessible websites for real estate, media, professional services, and a nonprofit organization. I am also project managing the conversion of a 1930’s chicken coop into a habitable cottage in upstate New York—as part of this, I learned a breadth of construction skills and played a critical building role in the actual conversion of the structure.
As a consultant to Pedal Point Productions, I revamped the brand of a music service provider and introduced a new media management system. I created a new website to showcase the company’s live musical performance services and re-introduce vintage branding for the orchestra.
As the Consulting Director of Nonprofit Client Strategy at multimedia company MediaPlace, I completed a project involving market research, identifying new market segment opportunities, developing a business and marketing strategy, creating email marketing campaign, and performing new business outreach.
Harvard Office for Sustainability
Graduate Intern
2018 to 2019
As a graduate student intern, I conducted research on fundraising strategies for campus sustainability programs and precedent studies for chemistry lab redesigns, presented analyses to the leadership team, and consulted on an undergraduate rain garden project.
REX Architecture
Operations Manager
2016 to 2018
Increased HR/People Ops and operational efficiency by 20% by conducting needs assessments for PEO and achieving buy-in from leadership for Justworks, automating expense reports through Expensify, and providing tailored training to staff
Introduced knowledge and document management protocols, including writing training guides and handbooks; identified opportunity to improve staff growth plans by designing more inclusive firm-wide performance evaluations
Oversaw HR/People Ops administration including workplace culture initiatives, labor law compliance audit, on-/off-boarding, software training, visa/work authorization sponsorship program, benefits, and PTO tracking; designed and delivered workshops on health insurance, including developing a comprehensive glossary of terminology
Overhauled HR/People Ops budget, strategy, policies, and practices; conducted research on industry-wide compensation practices and negotiated expanded benefits, market-competitive salary packages, and PD for 20 employees
Managed daily operations including supervising office assistant, bookkeeping, general office management, negotiating vendor contracts, and performing on-site IT support; produced employee appreciation and client-facing events, including holiday party for 300+ attendees
Prepared financial statements and forecasts, EOY contributions to PST/DBP, payroll, AP/AR, and client billing; monitored project budgets against contract terms (lump sum, IPD, hourly, not-to-exceed, etc.) for multi-hundred-million-dollar projects, including the Perelman Performing Arts Center at the World Trade Center
Nelson Byrd Woltz Landscape Architecture
Studio Manager
2016 to 2018
Identified and resolved knowledge gaps in protocol documents and training guides; wrote operations manual
Oversaw operations of NY office, including coordinating HR/People Ops, accounting, operations, high-profile client meeting preparations, professional development, on-site IT troubleshooting, and annual retreat for 50+ employees
Prepared NYC office for 20% growth; on-boarded and trained staff
Promoted a stimulating, supportive, and welcoming office culture produced annual holiday party for 100+ attendees
Built Deltek project management widgets to improve tracking of cost and labor for multi-year, multi-million projects
Volunteering
John A. Reisenbach Trailblazer Council
Responsible for memorializing meetings and tracking Trailblazer Council progress for a grant-giving foundation
Created on-boarding packet for new members and authored DEI survey for board members
Brown University Female Sexuality Workshop Coordinator and Facilitator
2006 to 2012
Facilitated more 1,600 hours of workshop programs for more than 80 students
Delivered more than 400 hours of facilitator training
Managed 5 to 7 facilitators per semester
Formalized institutional memory of successes and growth opportunities
Redesigned facilitation training program and created trainer handbook
Provided training to other student groups and ran train the trainer workshops
Authored curriculum on diversity, gender, sexuality, identity, communication, privilege, and oppression
Skills
Excel, Word, Powerpoint, OneDrive, Teams, Google Workspace, Harvest, Expensify, Justworks, Deltek Ajera, Workday, ADP, Greenhouse, QuickBooks, InDesign, Photoshop, Illustrator, Acronis, Tableau, Slack
Interests and Activities
architecture, photography, stone masonry, crosswords, live classical music, training my cat to do tricks
Education
Society for Human Resource Management
Certified Professional (SHRM-CP)
Harvard Graduate School of Education
Ed.M. in Education Administration
With coursework in Diversity and Inclusion (Graduate School of Education), Negotiation and Conflict Resolution (Harvard Law School), Urban Planning and Public Health (Graduate School of Design/T.H. Chan School of Public Health), Leadership (Harvard Kennedy School), and Financial Resources (Harvard Kennedy School)