As a lifelong speech and debate student – and later coach to students in Manhattan – I knew from a young age the importance of knowing how and when to use your voice in a room to advocate for yourself. Those skills carried and continually carry me forward in each of my professional endeavors. Before my current role as a project manager at HPA, I worked in the New York City Council’s Black, Latino and Asian Caucus as a Legislative and Communications Fellow where I quickly made real and deep relationships with council members. Prior to that I served as a Speechwriter and International Security Advisor to the Permanent Mission of Costa Rica at the United Nations where I sat in the UN General Assembly Hall and attended key diplomatic summits from the efficacy of Covid-19 vaccine rollouts to addressing the invasion of Ukraine. These varied experiences helped prepare me for the many different projects and clients I now manage in my portfolio at HPA.

My work as an international youth advocate for nuclear disarmament. Nuclear weapons represent a grave existential threat to humanity and as someone who previously worked for the United Nations and on a documentary, Shades of Disarmament (2023), related to this subject; I see many parallels to the concerns of nuclear weapons and the rise of AI. I am proud to be a loud voice encouraging responsible regulation of tools and weapons that have the capability to cause great harm to humanity, and to hope that the world is made a better place in part by these contributions.

Do it for the right reasons. Government, politics, and the firms that occupy space in between deserve the best of us. If you want to work in government relations, public affairs, communications, or a related field, I would encourage you to pursue it because you believe you have the ability to improve peoples lives.

I am a New Yorker by choice. Originally born in New Orleans, LA my family was displaced by Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Like many black families during that time, we struggled to find our footing, felt left-behind, but leaned on family to get by. After some time in Georgia, we moved just outside of Houston where I grew up, before I made the leap of faith to move to New York City to follow my dreams and now call it home.