Life is about transitions and as you will read, I’ve had several.
For the first thirteen years of my adult life I worked in psychiatric facilities, initially as a teacher in a children’s unit and then a therapist doing individual and group work. I hold an MSW degree from Hunter School of Social Work.
Following that career, I spent time studying acting and working on soap operas and in off-Broadway theaters, was a law school student for a year and a half and spent time as a waiter and a bartender. On impulse, I taught myself the basics of telecommunications and bootstrapped my way into a job with a Wall Street brokerage firm.
Over the next 25 years my career was governed by a series of phone calls at opportune times asking me to take on projects for which, on paper I had no qualifications. I worked on large construction projects in financial services culminating in an expanded role in the construction of 60 Wall Street followed by a position as COO of JP Morgan Corporate Real Estate and similar projects around the world. From those assignments, I shifted into a role as the Chief Risk Officer for Technology and Operations at the bank and then as Managing Director of an Operational Risk Management practice at PricewaterhouseCoopers.
A stint in my own risk management consultancy led to the position as CIO of McCann Worldgroup followed by a return to my own firm and engagements in Kenya and Thailand.
And then some down time and a struggle to listen into the narrative of my life.
While the careers I've had are varied, the element common to them all is curiosity, which is what caused me to seek out an understanding of who we all are in the early days of my adulthood. Coaching and it’s emphasis on the wholeness, creativity resourcefulness of the client is a return to that early work but with the wisdom that comes from choices and experience and an understanding that the only lasting change comes from within.
Note: Anam Cara is Gaelic for “soul friend” and has its origins in the ancient Celtic belief that every person needs a friend who sees their soul and speaks truth to that soul in the service of its destiny.
