I didn’t grow up dreaming of branding frameworks or talking about “talent optimization.”

I come from the front lines—30 years in the thick of hiring, training, and rebuilding broken teams.

Store Manager. Agency recruiter. In-house builder. Team fixer. Strategic fire extinguisher.

I’ve worn every hat in the hiring world—and carried most of them uphill.

What I saw again and again was this:
Great people were leaving great companies.
Great companies were invisible to the people they needed.
And leadership was often out of sync with the brand they thought they had.