Where is home for you?
I grew up in Kansas City and still consider it home.  It’s a beautiful city with a vibrant arts and local food community, and some of the most down to earth people you’ll ever meet. Kansas Citians are entrepreneurs with huge hearts, and I’m grateful it’s the place I grew up and call home.

What is your role within Esperanza? 
My role is to lead all US efforts for Esperanza. In practice, this entails everything from overhauling our financials and budgeting process, to developing a strategic marketing and communications plan, to ensuring we meet our fundraising goals that allow us to serve the vulnerable throughout the Dominican Republic.

Tell me about your professional background prior to Esperanza.
At TCU I studied Finance and Marketing and following graduation began my career with Accenture doing strategy consulting.  During that time, I worked across industries and regions of the world to manage organizational change for Fortune 50 companies. Eventually, I wanted to get back to Texas and moved to Austin where I started working for a tech company doing digital marketing and eCommerce consulting.  In Austin I was focused on our highly regulated clients in the banking and insurance industries.  After three years in Austin, the company asked me to move to Singapore to help start our Asia operations.  In Singapore, I hired our local team, developed our go-to-market strategy, and managed all of our client relationships across Asia Pacific.  I believe that the marketplace is a ministry, and am grateful to spent much of my career in this way.
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Describe the shift you’ve made from the private sector to nonprofit, and how you decided to make this change.
Throughout my life the Lord has nurtured a heart for the hurting, and I’ve long desired to take some time to do work I believe in and to use whatever gifts I’ve been given to make a difference in the world.  The turning point for me was Christmas of 2014 when I was trekking along the border of Tibet educating women about sex trafficking.  Looking around these extremely remote villages, I noticed that women were vulnerable to trafficking ultimately because they didn’t have a job.  In an area where most men are absent and it is the women who are responsible for finding any way possible to feed their children and perhaps give them a chance at an education, addressing their economic vulnerabilities is key to stemming the supply of women available for sale.  I came to see that economic empowerment is the most sustainable solution to poverty alleviation and I wanted to do whatever I could to help.

Why microfinance?
As I wrestled with all that I had seen on that trip, the Lord reminded me that He had developed my skills and experience in the business world, and yet given me a heart for the hurting.  Over the next year or so through much research and many conversations, I explored how I might best sustainably contribute to poverty alleviation, and this led me to microfinance.
What makes Esperanza different in your eyes?  
Esperanza recognizes that we all struggle with poverty, as poverty is not just a lack of material goods.  To that end, I appreciate our focus on the whole person, addressing physical needs through preventative healthcare and education, relational needs through an emphasis on community, material needs through access to capital, and spiritual needs through sharing the hope of the Gospel.  Our desire is to see hope and dignity restored, as men and women use their gifts to provide for their families.

Tell us about your faith. What are you learning about the Lord right now? 
I grew up in a Christian home and am grateful for the faith of my parents and grandparents before me.  Summers at Kanakuk Kamps taught me that “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me”.

Today, the Lord is teaching me that that he calls us to faithfulness in whatever season we’re walking through, as He is faithful!   He’s also reminding me how we can do nothing apart from him, and to bear fruit we must remain in Him, with the emphasis being on resting and abiding in him.

Tell us about one of your favorite Bible verses. What impact has it had on your life?   
Ephesians 3: 14-21 is a favorite verse.  As someone who likes to plan and work hard to accomplish whatever is before me, this verse reminds me that God is able to do far more than anything I can ask for or imagine.  And therefore, that I should wait on and trust in the Lord and not my own understanding, as Proverbs 3 teaches us.  This gives me hope and joy!

List 3 of your favorite things.
Travel
The outdoors
Cooking

Are you a reader? What book would you highly recommend today?
I love to read!  I like to keep up with Harvard Business Review, but for an all-time favorite novel would recommend Same Kind of Different as Me by Ron Hall and Denver Moore.

What are your hopes and prayers for Esperanza and its Associates? Where do you hope to see the organization in 5 years?
My prayer is that we would be faithful to the work to which the Lord has called us.  That as an organization we would dream big about how we can build upon the excellent work of the past, and also continue to embrace new ways of providing access to capital and complementary services to best serve our Associates.

Our team in Dallas is working to expand our brand awareness to reach new audiences and engage them with our mission, and in 5 years I hope that we are known throughout Texas for being a comprehensive solution to poverty alleviation, with Christ at the center of all that we do.

Name the best advice/encouragement that has ever been given to you.
I love the quote from Mother Teresa that says: “Yesterday is gone. Tomorrow has not yet come. We have only today. Let us begin.”

I also refer often to the Wesley Covenant Prayer:
I am no longer my own, but thine.
Put me to what thou wilt, rank me with whom thou wilt.
Put me to doing, put me to suffering.
Let me be employed for thee or laid aside for thee,
exalted for thee or brought low for thee.
Let me be full, let me be empty.
Let me have all things, let me have nothing.
I freely and heartily yield all things to thy pleasure and disposal.
And now, O glorious and blessed God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit,
thou art mine, and I am thine.
So be it.
And the covenant which I have made on earth,
let it be ratified in heaven.
Amen.

What advice/encouragement do you want to give to anyone reading this?
John Wesley said it well, so I’d leave you with these words. “Do all the good you can. By all the means you can. In all the ways you can. In all the places you can. At all the times you can. To the people you can. As long as ever you can.”