I work alongside rural communities to rebuild their economic footing, connecting capital, small businesses, and the people who need to be at the table to build rooted prosperity with our neighbors.
Successful businesses emerge from the soil of their communities, and each depends on the other's thriving.
What I bring…
Foundational Research
& Analysis
Are we solving for the right question? Together, we get to the root causes and the opportunities with the most leverage.
Design &
Prototyping
We build from our best theories, grounded in that analysis, into a prototype we can actually test.
Implementation Support & Outcome Measurement
We learn from the prototype, operationalize what works, and measure it to build real momentum.
How I show up…
My goal in any engagement is to complement and accompany efforts already underway. I come with deliberate questions and am slow to jump to answers without proper diligence, gaining context by working alongside those most proximate to the problem. I bring ideas and inspiration grounded in prior experience and research, and share them freely when they serve the work.
Selected Work…
How can we increase independent businesses' conversion rates and make delivery operations self-sustaining?
Foundational Research
& Analysis
I ran a post-mortem on the existing delivery model, gathered and analyzed real operating data, and mapped the true costs and opportunities for improvement.
Design &
Prototyping
I designed a new delivery model and operating procedures, defining pricing, packaging, and service radius, then piloted it in the market to test real customer and business demand.
Implementation Support
& Outcome Measurement
Ground-tested and proven: delivery became a source of cost-efficiency and new revenue, while delivering real value to local independent businesses.
How do you harness a natural resource normally left to rot into economic dynamism for a whole community?
Foundational Research
& Analysis
As part of a three-person MBA team, I led the market analysis, researching black walnut's overlooked potential and mapping the value chain. The key finding: collection alone is too expensive to justify, so the value has to come from an entity that generates returns for many stakeholders at once.
Design &
Prototyping
I developed a vision for a multi-stakeholder entity and its governance structure, the North Carolina Black Walnut Collective, then shared it with stakeholders across the value chain (growers, processors, chemical buyers, retailers, and researchers) to put a stake in the ground and iterate based on their input.
Implementation Support
& Outcome Measurement
We delivered a stakeholder-verified blueprint with a Build/Buy/Leverage roadmap and a ready pilot (warm buyers and processors lined up), demonstrating a regional market opportunity worth ~$41M+ and a viable path to capturing it.
How can a community being hollowed out create its own opportunity and forge ahead toward a better future?
Design &
Prototyping
Acting as a strategic coach to a community organizer, I did the pre-grant groundwork, working with the town to pursue planning funds for assessing affordable housing off the floodplain, advising on engagement with town administration, and helping move the group toward a community trust as the vehicle to steward redevelopment.
Foundational Research
& Analysis
North Montpelier is a historic mill town with an aging population, with young people leaving. I researched what revitalization would require: the vehicles, grants, and partnerships to bring back housing, businesses, and community space.
Implementation Support
& Outcome Measurement
The groundwork I laid helped secure a competitive $100K planning grant, with a community trust positioned to hold and steward the village center's redevelopment for lasting community benefit.
The path here.
I came to support business founders and community revitalization efforts from an operating question that has run through everything since my time studying political economy in Latin America, watching communities organize to meet needs when markets and governments failed. How might communities organize to stay resilient, self-reliant, and true to their values, whatever the markets or the government do?
Versions of this question brought me into government constituent services, where I saw how broad-based policy often failed individuals, and then into rural Maine and outdoor education, where I built a business to support the offseason economy but realized I needed to bolster my building skills to pull off and scale the social enterprise.
So I moved to Boston and started building products and operations with founders, which taught me how businesses work and scale. It also showed me how misaligned capital can pull companies away from the need that originally animated their founders. That led me to the Sustainable Innovation MBA at UVM (SI-MBA) to build the financial fluency to work with capital on the right terms.
Since then, I've been helping communities in Vermont find their footing and small businesses grow on their own terms, and exploring the confluence of the two. This is the work I want to keep doing, and I'm looking for collaborators.
Open to collaboration with…
Founders
Let's focus on your business's success while doing right by its community. I've helped mission-driven companies find win-win opportunities to collaborate with others, reducing overhead and growing stronger by "being big by being small together."
Community Leaders
Let's connect your community to the resources, capital, and structure it needs to build on its unique gifts.
Funders
Let's find new avenues that fit your mission, capital focus, and risk tolerance, and that serve tangible needs in the places we love.
Together, we can build toward an economy where people and prosperity stay rooted, and the good multiplies: businesses that thrive, communities that grow stronger, and capital that serves outcomes beyond its investors.
Get in touch.
Working toward stronger communities and rooted local economies? Whether as a founder, community leader, funder, or collaborator, I'd like to hear from you.