MEET AMY:
HELPING YOU THRIVE
I believe in the power within each of us to shape the world we want—a future built on awareness, compassion, connection, and love.
I bring clarity to complexity, creating ecosystems focused on growth, learning, and belonging.
Our world is getting increasingly more complex, volatile, uncertain, and ambiguous.
We’ve changed our environment more quickly than we know how to change ourselves, leaving many of us burnt out, disconnected, and lonely.
We must evolve to meet the moment.
MISSION
I guide the transformation of ambitious, purpose-driven people and organizations to meet today’s realities so that they can maintain a healthy and profitable business.
I design shifts with your employees and not for them, so good that they don’t want to leave and feel connected to each other and the mission of the organization.
VISION
A more connected world where people are more aware and understanding and our organizations are designed with their employees and not for them.
Positionality Statement
As a first-generation American, first-generation college student, and grandchild of Holocaust survivors, my identity is deeply shaped by resilience, empathy, and a profound connection to my family’s history. Growing up as the child of immigrants who couldn’t access higher education instilled in me an unwavering empathy for others and an appreciation for their stories. This empathy forms the foundation of my work, guiding me to design inclusive systems that recognize the unique experiences of those from marginalized backgrounds.
I identify as a neurodivergent, pansexual, queer female, and these aspects of my identity significantly influence my approach to both life and work. My neurodivergence enhances my ability to sense the world’s needs, enabling me to create programs and products that are deeply people-centered. It fuels my creativity and helps me challenge conventional norms around innovation, time management, and design. As a pansexual and queer woman, I am motivated to uplift others with marginalized identities, which allows me to embrace diversity in all its forms and see the inherent goodness in each person.
In addition to these identities, my career has been centered at the intersection of empathy and innovation. For nearly twenty years, I have been a trailblazer in creating cultures of innovation, leading thousands of individuals through change and fostering organizational evolution that meets contemporary needs. My ability as an empath and highly sensitive person is my greatest strength, enabling me to create brave spaces where people can be their full selves while embracing risk, failure, and experimentation.
As an entrepreneur, I apply these values to every project I undertake, with a focus on empathy, inclusion, and equity. My work is driven by the belief that every individual and organization has the potential to evolve through shared experiences and a deep understanding of human connection.
Amy in a Nutshell
CHANGE CATALYST
I served as a Presidential Innovation Fellow (PIF), a White House entrepreneur-in-residence, to tackle the nation's biggest challenges in two Administrations. I:
➞ Co-authored 15 research reports that created a shared language on government innovation and a 100-page Toolkit on Innovation.gov. I coded the open source website using Jekyll in GitHub.
➞ Created the Better Government Movement–an inclusive space where public servants build 21st century, delivery-driven government to solve problems and affect change within their organizations. The Movement grew to nearly 5,000 members, 2,000 participants and more than 200 active volunteers.
➞ Piloted the Design Challenge where 40 public servants grew their creative capacity, learned new tools to jumpstart innovation and solve government-wide problems. Participants completed 3 months of training in eight methodologies and pitched their ideas to leaders.
ECOSYSTEM BUILDER
I’ve built accelerator programs all focused on providing founders the right learning, tools, mentorship, coaching, and connections to realize their visions. I:
➞ Co-created the next generation of cyber product companies validated product ideas and coordinated investment capital to accelerate a founder’s path to a sustainable business model as Managing Director of the MACH37 Startup Accelerator.
➞ Founded the Digital Acquisition Accelerator, the first government-wide technology accelerator to for public servants to be better buyers of digital products.
➞ Managed the 2,000-person White House Open Data Innovation Summit and wrote a Fact Sheet to celebrate of the open data and civic tech movement during the Obama Administration.
➞ Improved filmmakers' storytelling ability through monthly facilitated meetings, project accountability, and advice on issues related to the documentary landscape, work/life balance, and the creative process as part of Docs in Progress' Doc Film Fellowship.
(RE) DESIGNER
I’m a systems and policy entrepreneur developing outside-of-the-box approaches to society’s problems or reimagining existing solutions for new realities. I:
➞ Lead research to re-sequence organizations with Either/Org, challenging the dominance of traditional Western business culture prevalent in many business, non-profit, and government structures.
➞ Served as the Director of Moonshot Ideas for Jobs for the Future to reimagine the school to work transition and climate jobs in regions across the United States and India.
➞ Founding member of the Institute for Equity Design and Justice, a research and design think tank that builds the field of equity design.
➞ Incubated People Powered Policy, a Tech Policy Fellow at the Aspen Institute Tech Policy Hub combining technology and modern strategy to encourage two-way communication between city governments and their constituents to shape policy about topics constituents care about.
➞ Facilitated design sprints for World Bank to reimagine climate change policy for the Glasgow UN Climate Change conference
EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE & STORYTELLING COACH
Amy deepens connection to ourselves and others through emotional intelligence education and coaching, storytelling, & community design. She:
➞ Authored Empathy for Change: How to Build a More Understanding World, a guide to create positive, compassionate change where we work, live and play. It includes stories from dozens of experts and her own experience co-creating movements to set empathy into action.
➞ Teaches emotional intelligence and the art of storytelling, the ultimate form of creating empathy across many sectors.
➞ Coaches a new generation of leaders embracing and practicing emotional intelligence to influence their cultures to evolve to meet the needs of today and prepare for the future.
SOCIAL IMPACT ENTREPRENEUR
I specialize in building and sustaining cultures of impact with a social good mission. I have challenged the status quo at 12+ organizations and can both set and implement the vision. I:
➞ Manage the Empathy Action Lab that guides the evolution of progressive, mission-driven organizations to meet the needs of today and prepare for the future.
➞ Train and coaches today’s leaders in emotional intelligence and psychological safety to improve workplace wellbeing and create thriving organizations through her organization, Healing for Work.
➞ Pioneered Booz Allen Hamilton’s Innovation Blueprint, Playbook, and Ecosystem, defining innovation in consulting and creating spaces to incubate ideas.
➞ Established a repeatable framework and roadmap to bring government agencies into the 21st century at the Transformation Center of Excellence at the General Services Administration
MY STORY
Growing up, I was deeply moved by the beauty of the people and places around me, while often isolating myself from an overwhelming home environment. My senses were always on high alert, and my emotions were magnified—sadness felt like deep sorrow, and joy like pure ecstasy. I had a rich inner world, caring deeply about others and empathizing without limits. I was intricately connected to everything around me.
What I didn’t realize at the time was that these traits would become my superpowers. Later, I found language to describe my experience: I am an empath and a Highly Sensitive Person (HSP). As an empath, I literally feel and take on other people’s emotions as if they were my own. Research shows that empaths have hyper-responsive mirror neurons, allowing us to share another person’s pain, fear, or joy. As an HSP, my heightened physical senses enable me to perceive the world in ways others might not, often picking up on subtleties others miss.
As I grew, I became an empathetic adult, placing immense value on relationships and human connection. I later learned that empathy was not only my gift but my greatest strength. According to the CliftonStrengths test:
“…You have the ability to sense the emotions of others as if they are your own. You can accurately put into words how they feel, offering great comfort. With you, people feel heard, understood, and supported. They love being around you, confiding in you, knowing you’ll listen without judgment.”
This realization was both affirming and a gut punch. I had found myself in professions that weren’t always kind to people like me: a tall, fat, queer, awkward, highly sensitive empath who was a first-generation American and the first in my family to attend college. But this insight also lit a fire within me, explaining my drive to care for others and help them achieve their visions.
With that clarity came power. I began bringing my whole self into a series of projects I call my “supernovas”—brilliant and explosive contributions in my life’s galaxy. These supernovas include:
Director of the St. Bernard Rebuilding Project/Team Leader in AmeriCorps National Civilian Community Corps
Senior Innovation Strategist at Booz Allen Hamilton
Presidential Innovation Fellow for The White House and General Services Administration (GSA)
Director of the Transformation Center of Excellence at GSA
Each of these roles was purpose-driven, but for a long time, I lacked a clear mission of my own. In 2018, I embarked on a journey to detach myself from expectations, conditioned thinking, and mental anguish. I embraced the label of solopreneur, experimenting with entrepreneurial projects and eventually writing Empathy for Change: How to Create a More Understanding World.
After years of letting systems and others hold power over me, I am now stepping fully into my own power. I am the agent of my life, pursuing the projects and research that align with my purpose and bring the energy and goodness I want to see in the world. This path feels both exhilarating and terrifying, but never has something felt so right. It is the culmination of all the skills and insights I’ve developed, and I know it will serve both me and the clients I work with for years to come.
I am deeply grateful that you are part of this journey with me.
VALUES
COMPASSION
I lead with empathy and equity; I seek to understand before I am understood. I set empathy into action, leading to compassion.
COOPERATION
I take action through shared understanding and common benefit. We go further, together, and realize we are more alike than we are different.
CURIOSITY
I am curious about the world and question our place in it. I listen and act with intention.
ACTION
Through awareness and understanding I take participatory action, and evolve with feedback. I build communities over networks & seek spaces where we see each other as whole humans.
COURAGE
I do the hard things because that’s how we change for the better. I have the courage to be disliked because I serve a higher purpose.
FEARLESSNESS
I do what’s right, despite the odds being against us. With cooperation I determine what’s right and pursue it relentlessly.