My story
So, you read the little “about me” on the home page and you want to know more? OK.
The story I am most often asked to tell is how a person with a PH. D. in Theatre History ended up coaching entrepreneurs. I gave you the TLDR version. Here is the rest. When I was an undergraduate, I applied for a Provost grant to develop two mini-courses. One helped computer science students understand the underlying concepts behind algorithms and the other used the costume development process as a proxy for understanding how diverse elements — like directorial vision, casting, music, lighting, rehearsals, set design and construction, and, of course, costumes — can come together in a complicated whole, a unified theatre production. I realized my passion was teaching. That’s what prompted me to pursue a Ph. D. I applied for and won the Mellon Fellowship in the Humanities which paid for my degree in Theatre History at Tufts University.
By the time I had finished my Ph. D. in 1991, I realized that a career in academia in the humanities wasn’t for me. It was too removed from current affairs. It didn’t feel relevant enough. So I decided to fall back on my computer science degree. Sure, I knew my top-notch DOS programming skills were not cutting-edge in the new age of Windows, but I knew how computers worked and could learn new languages. It was then that I had my first moment — call it karma, fate, luck, whatever — when something random changed my life trajectory. I was talking to a friend who asked what I was going to do if I didn’t teach. As I told her about my plan, she turned to her husband and said, “She would be perfect for Forrester.” The Forrester she was talking about was a tiny boutique market research firm. I joined Forrester Research in August of 1992 as a research associate and went on the rocketship growth ride that got me hooked on entrepreneurship. We went from twenty people and under $10 million in sales to over 400 people and $200 million by the time I left in 1999. Oh, and we went public in 1996. I had the opportunity to create their customer success organization, become an analyst, manage a team of analysts, and move into senior management in my nearly eight years there. I worked directly with the entrepreneur founder and saw the challenges faced in scaling a company.
When I left in 1999, it was the height of the Internet bubble and I got a lot of calls from folks who wanted to work with me. I didn’t know who to commit to, so I started my own consulting company so I could work with all of them. My clients included early-stage businesses building Internet infrastructure, computer security, consumer payments, and online banking systems as well as some established companies getting into e-commerce. When I moved to Chicago, I joined a dot.com company that imploded after the 2000 crash and a small incubator/accelerator that was acquired by a VC firm. That’s when lightning struck a second time. I met Ellen Rudnick who was running all things entrepreneurial at the University of Chicago GSB — now Chicago Booth. She and Steve Kaplan took a chance on me when students were demanding an increase in entrepreneurial curriculum and most tenure-track faculty weren’t interested in it. I built one of the first entrepreneurial execution courses in the country and won a prestigious pedagogy award for it.
In my 22 years at Chicago Booth, I taught five different classes, coached the annual New Venture Challenge competition for twenty years, taught the Global New Venture Challenge class for our international executive MBAs, offered boot camps to our global alumni in Chicago, Beijing, Singapore, Mumbai, and Mexico City, and worked with hundreds, if not thousands, of entrepreneurs on their ideas, processes, and companies. I have served on Boards of Directors and become an advisor to venture capital funds. Coaching is my passion. Storytelling is my superpower. And helping entrepreneurs — especially underrepresented and women entrepreneurs — is what I want to continue to do with WyseHeart. Maybe I can help you.
