I was born in Los Angeles, spent a decade of my childhood in Malaysia, and returned to LA for the last two years of high school — where I promptly bombed my placement test. At 15, a counselor told me I wouldn’t graduate, let alone make it to college. That moment, while brutal, cracked something open in me. I didn’t fight back with words; I found music. Band became my entry point to friendships, self-discipline, and belief. I played piano for the jazz band at 6:40 a.m., French horn for orchestra after school, took community college classes at night, and did enough tutoring to eventually earn a high school diploma. It wasn’t glamorous — but it was honest.

College wasn’t a straight shot either. I started at a community college; there, I took a job running financial aid seminars at local low-income high schools and, occasionally, gave presentations about college access. Somewhere in that hustle was the first time I felt the power of my words in changing lives.

That realization fueled everything that followed: I co-founded Big West Rotaract, a leadership foundation rooted in service and youth development. I launched a creative agency during the early wave of YouTube product placement marketing. And through it all, I traveled across the world — from Colombia to Ukraine — doing humanitarian work that reminded me just how much good can be done when you show up with a little grit and a lot of heart.

My philanthropy work is strongly intertwined with my professional career. And though I have a pretty hefty inventory of career paths, a few of the most impactful endeavors include working in political finance for the former state treasurer of California, building an educational startup called Tactile Brain to solve America’s fear of math (I hated math), and working in an executive search firm to truly understand the role talent plays in building great, lasting organizations.

Nothing makes me happier than being able to share my stories of people, things, places, and my passion for photography & video to provoke inspiration and surface new perspectives.

At this point in life, I care less about titles and more about time — how we spend it, what we leave behind, and how to document the journey while we're still on it. If something here resonates with you, I hope it lingers.