My passion for the Future of Work comes from how it will
enable more people to do what they love and reach their full potential

Some of my earliest memories are of my mother making dresses on our living room floor, all of our furniture pushed back to make space for the fabric and patterns she was working with. She was (and still is) an amazing dressmaker, yet had to give up her passion when she realized she couldn’t make enough money from it to put food on the table. She didn’t have the business knowledge to find enough customers or set fair prices when she could find them. In hindsight she could have made much more money dressmaking than in the retail jobs she was forced to take but she didn’t have the support she needed.

I didn’t know it at the time, but I was developing a passion for helping people achieve their full potential by alleviating their other burdens. I made my first business plan at 8 years old for a lawn mowing service. Even at that age I knew people would happily pay a small fee to avoid doing a chore that took time away from their other passions. At 16 I founded FolderMonkey, a school supplies company that saved high-school students time in organizing their notes giving them more time to study. At the time they seemed like money-making schemes or learning experiences, and since have I realized that those ideas came from somewhere.

Working hard to secure a position with McKinsey & Company allowed me to discover and explore my own passion for travel. The 25 countries (and counting!) I’ve been fortunate enough to visit have given me a global perspective and deep care for all people. Sadly one of these trips gave me a stomach condition that made it difficult to maintain the long hours and travel that my work required of me, but after over a year of suffering there was a glimmer of hope. I found myself on a project where I had complete autonomy over my work. I chose when and where I worked - as long as I did my work and communicated well then everybody would be happy. And they were! My performance rating skyrocketed almost as much as my quality of life. I had experienced the Future of Work and from the benefits it brought me personally, I knew I had to explore how I could bring it to others.

Soon after I moved to California to study for my MBA and immerse myself in the Future of Work. I became a freelance consultant to give myself the work flexibility I needed and found it to be ten times harder than expected. That’s when I founded LifeWork with the mission to make remote freelancing a sustainable career choice. As I have built that business I have furthered my research and developed my conviction that, done in the right way, the Future of Work can be a massive force for good.

The trends underlying the Future of Work will empower millions of people like my mother to make the most of their opportunities. I’m excited to share that with you.