About Em

Freedom, purpose, and presence

in leadership, in love, in life

Hi, I'm Em.

An early awakening to courage and resilience

I snapped my femur in half when I was just one year old. My older sister and I had been playing on my mother's bed when I decided to jump. The doctors recommended sliding the bone back in place, so I was strapped into a slanted bed with my feet above my head, unable to move. I pulled my hair out and ground down my baby teeth. My parents cheered me up with flashcard games. My mom still recalls the car ride home from the hospital: “Red light!” “Blue car!” “Dog!” I shouted out the window with an exuberance she'd never seen before.

I eventually recovered fully, to the point that I can’t even remember now which leg I broke. But something in me remembered the experience. It was my first initiation into resilience, an early knowing that pain and possibility can coexist, and that even when life turns us upside down, we can still learn, adapt, and grow stronger.

Leaping into the unknown

Leaving behind the safety of achievement, I followed a pull I couldn’t quite explain and moved to China. Beneath the logical reasons I construed at the time was a simpler truth: I was ready for adventure and ready to open myself to life.

China was alive with energy and transformation. I loved its pace of change, the hunger for growth, and the belief that learning never stops.

I began working with global organizations, helping bridge East and West, translating not just across languages but values and ways of thinking. Eventually, I founded my own company focused on workplace inclusion, at a time when there wasn’t even a shared word for it in Mandarin. Those early years taught me how growth is born from tension, how systems adapt through learning, and how real change happens when we dare to experiment at the edges.

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Learning beyond the classroom

I grew up in Toronto, drawn to learning and teaching from an early age. I pursued a degree in Concurrent Education at Queen’s University, a prestigious program for aspiring teachers, but I quickly found rigid curriculums confining.

So I began searching for a different kind of classroom. I started tutoring in federal prisons, where learning met real relevance. Instead of textbooks, I built lessons around what each person actually cared about (boxing, running a business, current events, etc.). Many of my students had been failed by systems meant to serve them. Those experiences made me question not just what we teach, but how and why.

Later, I completed a master’s degree in policy studies. At graduation, I stood on stage holding two of the four awards presented that year. I expected to feel full. Instead, I felt boxed in. External recognition no longer held meaning. It was time to stop chasing approval and start following my soul.

Career momentum and systemic change

During those years, I partnered with multinational organizations across Asia Pacific to deepen intercultural collaboration, build leadership capabilities, and create learning cultures. One focus area centered on women in leadership. I ran programming and coaching programs for women, but also understood that for women to truly thrive, the surrounding systems also had to evolve. So I also partnered with organizations, worked with managers and executives to reshape culture — creating the trust, openness, and shared responsibility that allowed everyone to contribute their best. I came to see thriving and the environment we operate in as inseparable: when individuals are supported to grow, systems strengthen; when systems are healthy, individuals thrive.

Alignment as a way of life

Work and life have never been separate for me. When I first tried Stanford’s “lifeline” exercise, I drew only one line. Alignment, I learned, isn’t static. It requires continual recalibration as life unfolds.

I came to Bali for what was meant to be another creative sabbatical, and then the world paused. Covid. Suddenly, I was “stuck,” family separated (I was with my little one who was four at the time). No certainty, no clear way forward.

What began as disruption became one of the most grounding experiences of my life. I discovered, in a deeply spiritual way, that home isn’t a place. It’s being at ease in my own skin. It’s the stillness that remains when everything else falls away.

From that groundedness, life began to expand. I started to work more globally. My ability to hold space for transformation was highly valued, and some weeks I would “visit” every continent, facilitating virtual sessions for leaders and teams navigating complexity and change. That time deepened what I already knew, that love and awareness aren’t concepts to teach, but ways of being to live. I found a quieter, steadier rhythm that continues to guide my work and my life.

At home, I was building a modern, blended, intercultural family. I bring the same spirit to motherhood that I do to my work — openness, curiosity, and being fully myself. Stepping more fully into the feminine, holding love as both guide and grounding, has been beautiful. My kids have joined me in jungle runs, sat in on workshops, and learned that love is an energy that belongs everywhere.

Creative sabbaticals and the call to thrive

After more than a decade in Beijing and regular visits to Singapore for women-in-leadership work, I began taking creative sabbaticals in Indonesia — spacious periods for reflection, writing, and experimentation. Stepping away from the usual pace of work turned these seasons into living laboratories for exploring new ways of being.

During those times, I created assessments and laid the foundations for my speculative fiction series. I also reconnected deeply with nature, natural rhythms, and the power of unstructured time — all key ingredients that awaken creativity and insight.

Those sabbaticals taught me that growth often happens in stillness, that imagination needs space, and that real breakthroughs come when we allow ourselves to live, listen, and create without a script.

The pandemic: Finding home

The energy shifted. We laughed. We ate the smashed lemon tart. And we had so much fun, we decided to make it a tradition — birthday tart for breakfast, with a good annual smash. He didn’t try to fix it or force it. But his response (playful and present), is the kind of leadership I believe in.

Life has a way of teaching us the same lesson in new forms: that what breaks can also open. The mess, the uncertainty, the moment we think something has gone wrong may actually be the beginning of something new — if we have the presence to meet it that way.

This is what I help leaders discover: how to see possibility in the disruption, how to stay grounded in uncertainty, and how to have the courage to move toward what’s emerging.

My partner, the father of our three children, likes to describe me as “a tropical bird that can’t be caged.” I’ll take it.

Because freedom, for me, isn’t about doing whatever I want. It’s about following the pull even when I can’t see the destination — trusting that being caged in certainty is far more dangerous than flying toward the unknown.

Ready to explore what’s possible?

If you are at a moment where existing approaches no longer feel sufficient, and you’re looking for a thinking partner who is comfortable working without a script, I’d be glad to explore whether there’s a fit for the transition you are navigating.

On my birthday this year, we decided to have lemon tart for breakfast — because, why not? My nine-year-old daughter went to the fridge to get it.
And dropped it.

Smashed it. Tears.

Crumbs flying.

A whole thing.

Then my husband, Rich, did something simple but quietly powerful. He flipped the tart back onto the plate, tossed the part that hit the floor, and pulled up a video of Massimo Bottura — the Michelin-starred chef famous for his dessert Oops! I Dropped the Lemon Tart.

From groundedness to becoming

From that steadiness, something else became clear. Naming patterns, surfacing tensions, creating awareness are essential parts of transformation, and I had spent years helping individuals and teams do exactly that. It's meaningful work. And yet, I began to feel it was no longer enough on its own. Old systems are collapsing, old ways of working are failing. I found myself not only increasingly curious about what might come next, but also deeply drawn to participate in its emergence.

That shift doesn't come from impatience, but from responsibility. Building requires risk — the willingness to act without certainty, to learn in public, to adjust rather than defend. I began choosing work and collaborations where experimentation was possible, where values were lived rather than debated, and where flourishing wasn’t just an aspiration, but something we attempted, imperfectly, in real time.

Living the work

I keep learning. My deep curiosity about what helps people and systems thrive has evolved into a scholarly, transdisciplinary exploration. I’m pursuing a PhD in Transformative Studies at the California Institute of Integral Studies, researching how leaders can bridge thriving and flourishing in complex, changing times. I’m also a Fellow with the International Humanistic Management Association and co-lead programs with the Humanistic Leadership Academy, supporting educators and business leaders reimagine work as a space for human and ecological flourishing. Here, my love of practice meets my love of inquiry. Research sharpens my discernment; lived experience keeps me honest. Each informs the other.

I continue to be guided by intuition — to engage with people, projects, and organizations that feel alive. I’m drawn to collaborations that are purpose-driven, creative, and courageous; work that stretches what’s possible without losing what matters.

This past year alone, our family has traveled to more than fifteen countries, weaving work and life together in a beautiful rhythm that feels whole. Flourishing, for me, isn’t an abstract ideal — it’s enacted. It’s how we choose, how we relate, and how we move through uncertainty with presence and care.

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