Profile

I have many functions. I work with our baking companies, who bake the actual product, and monitor quality. I deal with investors to grow our capital base. I’m also building our team. Right now, I am negotiating a lease on new space and building out our office that will have an R&D kitchen.

Currently, our office is in the front part of a Victorian flat. (My husband and I live in the back.) We have a very small office. Usually, my team and I sit around the dining room table to work. We have a few phones, printers and laptops.

Every day is different but I start work at 8:30 or 9:00. I take breaks for coffee and lunch. Sometimes I take a yoga break and then work at night. I have a very flexible schedule. It’s a huge gift.

• Resourcefulness. It’s important to be flexible.
• Confidence in your own abilities.
• Trust in instinct and intuition.
• Listening. I need to listen to my team for their solutions.
• The ability to identify people’s strengths to effectively run a project and help people grow. It’s not in anyone’s interest for people to do what they don’t want to do.

Yes. I travel about twice a month. I travel around the country and explore different markets and talk to consumers about their desires and needs.

I really like how dynamic it is. I never get bored. I get to do many different kinds of things and set my own schedule.

The difficult part is when things come up that are out of my control. But I have a strategy for dealing with them: I focus on what I’m grateful for and then I identify 3-5 options for dealing with the problem.

I like to go to places and talk to people. I also like to read food writers like M.K. Fischer. I also get inspired when I sit down with a cup of tea and get still. The simple things inspire me.

My parents. My mother is very creative. When I was a child, she baked, made costumes, and did many creative things even when she was severely ill.

My father also inspires me because he makes happen whatever he sets his mind too. He is a master of focus and mind setting. He also taught me humility, which is something I really needed to learn.

Wherever you go there you go. It has kept me centered.

There are always naysayers and people telling you can’t do it. I ignore bad advice.

• Never take no for an answer.
• Don’t be afraid to reach out and talk to people.
• Follow your intuition and your feelings—that feeling of joy.
• Enjoy the process. It’s a key thing.
• Realize there are options. There are different ways to approach a situation.

Flexibility, patience and humility.

No. I needed the lessons that I had to get where I am today. This was the path I chose. I am very fulfilled and happy with my life.

When I was little, I wanted to be in fashion. I really liked style and I’d draw sketches of dresses and tops. I was discouraged because my parents and grandparents told me that I couldn’t make any money doing fashion. At that time, success was defined as making a lot of money.

I also started to cook when I was four years old. I had a flair for putting ingredients together but I never gave it any credence as a career. I thought it was just something that makes me happy with my family but that’s it.

So, I thought that I would do what my Dad wanted me to do and that was to get a degree in business. My undergraduate degree was in accounting and finance. I had no idea what I was thinking. The training was very good.

I told myself that I was not going to work in a bank and I ended up working in a bank. I thought it was so stuffy and conservative. I found banking comforting in that it was conservative and structured. I was also given a lot of power at a young age. At 23 years old, I worked in mergers and acquisitions. We went around in little jets and took over banks. It was thrilling.

I decided to move to Chicago. I worked for the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago. It was a fabulous place to be in your twenties. At the Federal Reserve I went through additional financial analysis, management, and writing training, which was an incredible ground from which to start my own business. I also got an MBA while I worked there and they paid for it.

After awhile at being highly creative in a conservative atmosphere, I started to rattle a lot of cages. I felt like a bull in a china shop. I decided it was time to move on and so I paid for the second half of my graduate degree because I decided to delve into my creativity.

I decided to be an artist. I painted some paintings, and one even ended up in a magazine, but there was something missing. It just wasn’t fulfilling for me. It was a direct relationship just between me and the painting. It didn’t have an impact on the community. I couldn’t see anyone enjoying it.

Then, I went to a food writing class and I couldn’t stop talking about food. I felt all along—even when I was in business and banking— that there was a fire in my belly that needed to be expressed but I didn’t know what drove it. It just went flat.

I wondered where is my passion? Where is my fire? What am I supposed to be here? What do I do to live?

When I took the food writing class, the spark just came alive. I went to the instructor and asked, “What did you recommend?” She said, “See if you can apprentice.” And so I did.

I found the best pastry place in San Francisco, called Citizen Cake. I asked to be an apprentice. They thought I was nuts. I said just give me a chance and I’ll prove it. It was like a whole new world opening up to me. I wasn’t given glamorous assignments by any means, but I was so happy. It was so joyful just smelling the chocolate and watching the whipped cream in the mixer. It was an all encompassing, wonderful environment.

I was now in the flow. I recognized that I was very joyful. I loved this and I knew that I needed to be open to wherever the road was leading next.

After Citizen Cake, I learned how to do small production and I worked for a catering kitchen.

When I first went out on my own, I started to provide pastries, scones, muffins, and granola to cafés in San Francisco. I slugged it out for about a year, getting up at 4:30 in the morning to get my product to the cafés across town.

One day I was on a walk with my husband and he brought up the issue that my business was throwing our schedule off and he didn’t get to see me anymore. He suggested that I just package and sell the granola.

I researched the regulations, printed the label on my home computer, approached what I thought was the best store and they bought a case of each product.

Now my product is at several hundred locations across the country including Dean & DeLuca in New York.