HOW I GOT HERE

I didn’t set out to become a leadership advisor.

I was raised by immigrant parents who taught me to work hard, be strong, and never let them see you sweat. That mindset took me far in my career—through business school at Berkeley, senior roles at high-growth companies, and eventually the C-suite as Chief People Officer.

But it wasn’t until I lost both my parents and my husband in quick succession that I began to understand: I had mastered the art of holding it together—but not of letting go.

Grief cracked me open. And in that space, I found something I had never fully accessed before—my own emotional truth. It was messy and uncomfortable, but it was also powerful. It changed how I led, how I related, how I lived. I stopped performing strength and started embodying it.

That journey became the heart of my book Strong Like Water—a call to leaders everywhere to redefine what it means to lead with strength in today’s world. Not by pushing harder, but by softening where it matters. Not by bracing against fear, but by learning to move with it.

Now, I help other leaders do the same.