Behind every brand is a story. Here’s mine.
I grew up in New Bedford, Massachusetts as a highly sensitive child with a long history of weird health issues that confounded doctors and exasperated my mother. Since I was a teen, I started researching natural health remedies to try and find answers.
Art school seemed the best place for a sensitive and non-academic person like me, and I graduated from RISD in 1990 with a degree in Graphic Design. This opened up a door to many exciting jobs worldwide – from editorial design (Colors Magazine, Vanity Fair) to packaging design (Donna Karan Beauty, M&S), and finally, branding (Wolff Olins).
During my job at Wolff Olins, I learned about the power of branding and the research and storytelling aspects of brand strategy. I’ve been honing my skills in this area for the last 20 years.
I absolutely love uncovering the ‘story behind the brand’ through research and deep meaningful work with my clients.
I’ve lived in Providence, New York, Rome (where I met my English husband) and am now settled in London.
My interest in natural remedies was reignited at age 33 when a doctor told me I was infertile and that even IVF would not work. Out of desperation, I tried to ‘fix’ my infertility through a natural wholefood diet and supplements. My first daughter was born in 2004, and my second in 2006.
Unfortunately, at age seven my youngest daughter developed PANDAS, an autoimmune disorder that ravaged her brain and our lives for years. Determined to find more answers to help my daughter, I retrained in nutritional therapy, qualifying in 2017 from CNM.
In the meantime, my daughter and I found incredible support from nutritional therapist Stella Chadwick at Brainstorm Health. I’m happy to report my daughter is much better, with mild symptoms that are easily managed and on her way to uni soon.
I then worked with Stella at Brainstorm Health as one of her practitioners. Working under someone so knowledgeable and who helped my daughter so much was a dream. The whole team at Brainstorm Health were fabulous to work with.
In 2020 I was knocked down by long Covid and was eventually forced to give up working as a nutritional therapist. The stress of dealing with very challenged children took its toll, often triggering PTSD as I relived the intense stress of having a child with PANDAS.
Desperate to keep working in an industry I believe in, I now share my expertise as a designer and brand strategist with other nutritional therapists and natural health professionals.
Today I work with many clients, large and small, doing everything from brand strategy, workshops, design, and copywriting to helping therapists set up the type of services they want to offer.
For large-scale projects (e.g. large clients like Nature, NHS, RTL, and others), I team up with world-class agencies and studios and have been lucky enough to work on a number of projects with the very talented Mark Porter.
For nutritional therapy and other small business clients, I work one-on-one, delivering the same agency-quality work at a fraction of the cost.
I still practice nutritional therapy for a very small number of adult clients and keep my CPD current. I hope to return to more nutritional therapy one day but in the meantime am so happy to help others launch their careers!
My mission is to make it as easy as possible for you to launch and run your business so you can help make the world a healthier place.
Please click here if you’d like to email me to learn more. I’d love to hear from you!