Featured Clients

In the past few years, Ashley C. Ford’s name has been popping up everywhere—she’s written cover stories for national magazines, hosted (and appeared on) blockbuster podcasts, and started her own video series, PROFILE by Buzzfeed News. But right before her career took off, Ashley was struggling with depression, cycling through jobs, and undecided about what to do next. Here, she explains how she figured out what she wanted—and established the routines she needed in order to do it. 

Ashley lives in Brooklyn with her husband, Kelly Stacy, and their dog. She’s currently working on her memoir, Somebody’s Daughter, which will be published by Flatiron Books under the imprint An Oprah Book.

WHEN I STARTED MY CAREER, my expectations for my work life were so low. I thought I would spend my life being an administrative assistant who wrote on the side, and I didn’t think that was so bad. Especially living in Indiana, where the cost of living is a lot better than Brooklyn, it seemed sustainable to me. When people started wanting to hire me for bigger writing jobs, I was excited, but there was always a part of me that felt like, I don’t know if this is for me, and I don’t know if this is going to last.

Ashley wears the Annie dress, the Roxane blazer, the Lana boot, and the Williamina earrings.

SOMETIMES THE HARDEST THING TO SAY, especially as a young black woman from the Midwest, is what I want. It takes practice. You start practicing in the places where you feel safe, and then eventually you practice in places where there’s more risk. My home is a really safe place. Usually the first time I say something out loud about what I want, it’s to my husband. I’m lucky to have the kind of husband who will hear that and insist on it. And from there, I can take it to the next level, with my team. I have my literary agent, my speaking agent, my assistant, my mentors, my “board of directors” in personal relationships. When I start telling those people what I want, then they’ll say, “Well, if you want that, you should talk to this person, or read this book, or see this thing.” I’ve found that the minute I start talking about what I want, I get closer to it. Or I realize that maybe it’s not what I want after all. But if I just keep it to myself, there’s a lot of room for confusion. If you don’t tell people what you want, they’ll just assume they know, or that they’re already giving it to you.

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SAYING WHAT YOU WANT PUBLICLY is extra terrifying, but it can also pay off. A little over a year ago, I tweeted about how I’d enjoyed writing a piece for a print magazine and wanted to do it again. The next thing I know, a writer—a really amazing woman named Rachel Kaadzi Ghansah—suggested that I write the cover story on Janelle Monae for Allure magazine. The magazine had asked her to do it, but it wasn’t really in her wheelhouse, so she put me in touch with them instead. And she didn’t just send them to me. She CC’d me on the original email where they had said how much they would pay her and everything. They wound up offering me a little less money, which I understood, because it was my first cover story, and I’m not Rachel Kaadzi Ghansah. But since then I’ve done two more covers for Allure—Serena Williams and Anne Hathaway. And for the third one, I asked for more money, and they said yes.

AS A WRITER, ESPECIALLY FOR ONLINE PUBLICATIONS, I learned how to create things in chaos. And for a long time I thought, “Oh, I must thrive in chaos, under pressure.” Because if you practice chaos, you’ll be good at chaos. But if you practice routine, you’ll be good at routine—and routine helps you get a lot more done than chaos. I’m in the process of switching from chaos to routine, and it’s tough, because you have to create boundaries. And that can be emotional. It’s hard to tell people no. But you need boundaries to create routine and do your best work. That has been true of writing as well as maintaining relationships. If you’re not regularly tending the garden of your relationships with people, you lose them. It’s hard to go out and be present with people when you are constantly under pressure, because you don’t know how to work any other way. 

Ashley wears the Dietrich jacket, the Lise top, the Foster pant, and the Capri earrings.

I DECIDED TO OVERHAUL THE WAY I WAS WORKING after I let down someone who I care about and admire deeply. I had a dream opportunity to work with this person, but my life was so chaotic that I dropped the ball. I dropped it hard. Not only was I in chaos, but I also refused to ask people for help. I knew I had to change when this person reached out and was very clear about their disappointment in me. That’s the kind of thing that you can’t fix. And it messed with my confidence. I was suddenly like, “Wait, am I capable?” Sometimes the answer is no—I didn’t have the tools that I needed. Giving me those tools wasn’t anybody else’s responsibility. It’s mine. And I didn’t have them when I needed them, because I had never cultivated them. So that’s what I’m working on now.

I USED TO NOT PLAN ANYTHING. I used to think I would find the time to do the things I needed to do, but that’s not actually how the world works. You have to schedule the time. If something is really important to you, it should be on your calendar. That includes seeing my friends, reaching out to family, sending people flowers for birthdays. That’s communicating with my assistant regularly.

I FOUND MY ASSISTANT ABOUT A YEAR AGO, on Twitter. We had been mutual Twitter followers for some time, and she had recently been laid off from her position as an executive assistant. I needed some extra help, and I thought she might need a bit of money to help with the gap with her layoff. And then we just never stopped working with each other. She has another full-time job now, and she does this for me as her side hustle. She is the greatest gift I’ve ever given myself. She’s sunshine. 

Ashley wears the Peggy top, the Chadwick top (tied around her waist), the Crosby skirt, and the Williamina earrings.

I’VE DEFINITELY HAD MOMENTS WHEN I FELT LOST. In January of 2015, my grandmother passed away. She was like my second parent, because my dad wasn’t around, and I dealt with grief in a real way for the first time in my life. I got depressed, quit my job, started another job, and quit that job too. I started to go full-time freelance, but I was so depressed that it wasn’t going super well. Eventually, I got a new job that seemed great, but then it ended just before the two-year anniversary of my grandmother’s death. That’s when it hit me: I should just do whatever I want to do. I had been trying to play by other people’s rules, in and out of two jobs in two years, and I just didn’t want to do it anymore. So I decided to work really, really hard at what I wanted to do and see what happens. And so far, it has worked out really well. I was able to finish my book proposal and finally sell my book. I was able to start working with a speaking agency and booking gigs regularly. I can look down the pipeline and know I’ve got a few months’ worth of work coming, and it’s nice.

I WEAR MANY DIFFERENT HATS AT WORK. Technically I’m a small business owner, I’m a spouse, I’m a dog owner, I have a family who I take care of in different ways. I am a writer, I’m a host, I’m a podcaster. It’s a lot, but I’m learning to stop and ask myself, How can I do these things as the best version of myself? Who do I need to help? What skills do I need here? If I sit down and think about those things, then they seem less scary. For the next two years, it’s book city. My book is my first priority, and everything has to fit around that.

FOR MANY YEARS, MY HOME SELF AND WORK SELF were two completely different people. And now I’m seeing the importance of integrating them. In my home life, I am woefully domestic. I love to cook and take care of the dog. I like hosting in my home and planning meals. It’s very calm and woo-woo in here. And then my work self is much more energetic. She is vibrant, full of ideas, wittier. She definitely wears better outfits. Me on a set or in an office versus me at home, those are two very different people. And it took me a while to realize that I’m not those two people separately—I’m both. That gave me more balance in my life, and less compartmentalization.

Ashley wears the Dietrich jacket, the Lise top, the Foster pant, and the Capri earrings.

MY HUSBAND AND I BOTH WORK FROM HOME, and we live in a one-bedroom apartment. It used to be that I almost never showed him my writing before it was published. And he’s a writer, too—not just a writer, but a fantastic editor. In trying to keep our relationship separate from my work, I made him feel like I didn’t think he could add value to it. But that wasn’t my intention—I thought I had to keep those parts of my life from touching, even though a lot of my writing could have benefited from his eye. I can’t believe I had an editor in my house for five years and I didn’t make use of it! My husband reads my work now, and it actually makes me write more, because I get excited to send him things and hear his comments. 

I LOOK FORWARD TO BECOMING A MENTOR SOMEDAY, but I’m really not at that point yet. I’ve had some incredible mentors. Roxane Gay has been supportive of me and my work in a myriad of ways for almost ten years. And Glynnis MacNicol has been there for me in some of my roughest moments. Both of them helped me navigate spaces I’m unfamiliar with. They also helped me understand not just what I want, but how to get it. Roxane was the first person to publish one of my essays. And Glynnis reached out to get lunch with me within the first week that I moved to New York. She wanted to sit down and talk about my work, and about her work, and being involved with TheLi.st, which was the first thing I was part of in New York. 

IT’S WEIRD TO ENTER THE PHASE OF LIFE WHERE I’M NOT THE INGENUE ANYMORE. I’m not the new girl in this industry. I have a little bit of power. And I have to be thinking seriously about how I use that. And more specifically, I need to be thinking about the responsibility and the weight of that.

Want to nominate a Woman of the Week? Email us at womanoftheweek@mmlafleur.com.

Born to Italian parents, Nadja Pinnavaia grew up eating healthy, whole foods at home. It wasn’t until she moved to the United States and had her own children that she realized how hard it could be to maintain a healthy, nutrient-rich diet. Though she’d spent the majority of her career in finance (she worked on the trading floor at Goldman Sachs before going on to lead the firm’s hedge fund team), she shifted gears in 2014. Having lost various family members to cancer and other health-related ailments, she turned her attention to the healing power of food. In 2016, she launched Plantable, a meal-delivery-and-coaching service that helps people transform their health through food. Below, we chatted with Nadja about swapping her corporate ambitions for the scrappy startup life. 

WHEN I WAS YOUNG, I got it into my head that I wanted a “bright lights, big city” kind of career—I wanted to manage a multinational company. My father was the CFO of a big Italian company, and he died when I was just 10 years old. That early loss affected me. I wanted to be in finance and have a big corporate job like he’d had. I was very driven by the importance of being independent as a woman, having a career, making my own money—and finding security in those things. Yes, I wanted a partner and a family, but I knew I wanted to be financially independent first.  

Nadja wears the Giovanna dress and the Bezel earrings.

I WAS QUITE GEEKY. I did my undergraduate degree in London, and then I went on to do a Ph.D. in quantum chemistry at Cambridge. I ended up going into finance at Goldman Sachs in London, where I was kind of deemed a nerdy rocket scientist. This was 1995, and derivatives were all the rage, so I ended up on the trading floor working in equity derivatives. It was a wonderful learning experience, being a young woman on a male-orientated trading floor. I spent six years there and then moved into asset management. 

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ULTIMATELY, I ENDED UP RUNNING GOLDMAN’S HEDGE FUND TEAM, and I was responsible for business as a whole. I spent my time with some of the largest institutional money managers in the world—the large pension plans, insurance companies, some ultra-high net worth individuals—advising them on their investment portfolios. That was the early 2000s, when this movement into hedge funds was really just getting underway. In 2007, I met a very nice American man, and after a year of trans-Atlantic dating, I decided to leave Goldman and move to New York. 

Nadja wears the Graham kimono, the Peggy top, the Foster pant, the Bezel earrings, and the Bezel necklace. 

I HAVE HAD A FEW REALLY IMPORTANT MENTORS in my life. The first was my former boss—a lady called Gerrie McManus—who is a brilliant, dynamic, and incredibly successful woman. She helped elevate my visibility in a tight corporate culture, where senior leadership was predominantly male. As young women, we have a tendency to “keep our heads down” and get on with our jobs. That works well as a strategy in the early days. But managing the transition from a hard-working junior person into one of more senior leadership requires a different approach. It involves getting noticed, being heard, having a voice, and building consensus among one’s peers and with senior management. A mentor can be really helpful in reminding women that success is not just about performance—it’s also about softer, people skills. 

TWO IMPORTANT THINGS HAPPENED in 2014. On the personal side, my mother-in-law was diagnosed with stage-three kidney cancer. My own mother had died of breast cancer, so I thought, “Oh no, not again.” I didn’t want to be passive this time, so I started researching and looking for ways to help her, and I came across a book called Anticancer: A New Way of Life by David Servan-Schreiber. I learned so much about how today’s modern diet compromises our immune systems. And then on the professional side, I had started a company called Whitecap, and one of our clients sold a well-known weight-management shake product. I put my chemistry hat on and did some research, and I realized that I didn’t believe in this product at all. I told my colleagues, “I’m not putting my reputation on the line to turn this brand around, because this isn’t the way to improve health.” So I walked away from the opportunity and that job.

I SPENT THE REST OF 2014 reading every single physician-authored bestseller there was so that I could better understand how our food impacts our health. My two main conclusions were: one, health is not about calorie restriction, it’s about switching to a nutrient-dense diet; and two, many of us have an addiction or dependency when it comes to food, and we have to break that psychological cycle. The idea for Plantable came out of those revelations. 

Nadja wears the Shanna dress, the Ginger pump, and the Bezel earrings.

I ATTENDED A COURSE at the Natural Gourmet Institute in culinary nutrition in 2015. I wanted to bring what I had learned into the kitchen, so I launched a pilot program. I tested my healthy recipes on 10 people for 28 days, and the results were incredible. People lost weight, but more importantly, they felt amazing. They were glowing; they were on a high. So I thought, “Let’s do this for real.” I hired a renowned chef, Nikki Bennett, and we launched in 2016 out of a little kitchen in Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn.

THERE WAS A HUGE LEARNING CURVE at the beginning. We have wonderful chefs, so the food prep was easy, but the fulfillment and distribution were challenging. At first, I was literally driving our branded truck around Manhattan and Brooklyn, and people would come meet the truck and get their meals for the week. I almost had multiple heart attacks driving that thing, especially after big snowstorms. And then once we grew, we had to figure out shipping to the west coast. Getting up to speed on logistics and technology was a challenge. 

Nadja wears the Graham kimono, the Peggy top, the Foster pant, the Bezel earrings, and the Bezel necklace. 

I WAS ON THE TODAY SHOW a couple of months ago, and I thought, “Gosh, what am I going to wear?” I ended up in heels, navy suede pants, and a white shirt with bat wings—I’m lucky I didn’t get the wings in the tomato sauce we were cooking! In general, my style is simple, elegant, and a bit sexy. Back when I was in finance, I used to love wearing power suits and pinstripe waistcoats. Now, I really just want to look elegant and a bit cool, but nothing overly trendy. 

I’M DRIVEN BY WANTING TO HELP PEOPLE feel better. If I dig deep, the pain of losing both my parents at a young age is part of why I started this company. I’m an older mum—I was 39 and 41 when my two kids were born—and I want to be around for them as long as I possibly can. We can’t control everything in life, but we’ve got more control over our health and our longevity than we think. I wanted to bring that knowledge to people. Plantable is more than a meal-delivery company; we’re a wellness transformation program. 

Siva Kumari is one of the humblest achievers you will ever meet. “I’m surprised and heartened by how hard work continually pays off,” she says of her career ascent. Now the Director General of The International Baccalaureate (IB), she holds a Doctor of Education and multiple master’s degrees. But her career in education was anything but guaranteed. As a young girl in India, she was taught to be an ambitious wife—not an ambitious scholar or professional. Since then, she has built an impactful, global career through her particular brand of patience and persistence. Below, Siva talks to us about developing her own inner compass, fighting for education, and the importance of empowering both genders. 

I GREW UP IN A VERY SMALL TOWN on the southeast coast of India. I had great parents, but they lived by the times and were very conservative. For instance, I wasn’t supposed to ride a bicycle because I was a girl. I wanted to keep my parents happy, but I was very curious. I would break the rules without going way out of bounds. My parents raised me to be a really good wife for someone: to be well-dressed, to be educated, to speak a few languages, and to be trained in arts like music and dance. Their goal was for me to be a good wife, and in my particular caste, girls were supposed to be married by the time they finished their bachelor’s degree or just before. But it didn’t happen for me on that schedule. 

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MY FATHER DIDN’T WANT ME TO GO FURTHER IN MY STUDIES, but I disregarded him and applied on my own to do a Master’s in Psychology at a university in India. That wasn’t a pleasant experience for him, but he knew I was determined to do it. I just thought, “There’s no way I’m going to compromise my education just because we didn’t find a husband for me.” It’s not that I was trying to be a rebel; I just felt it was the right thing to do. 

Siva wears the Tory dress, the Williamina earrings, and the Ginger pump.

MY MARRIAGE WAS ARRANGED after I finished my master’s, and I followed my husband, who was a physician, to the United States. He was very busy with his residency, and I didn’t want to stay home, so I did another master’s program so I could get a job as a certified counselor. I called my parents, and they were like, “What’s wrong with you?”  

WHEN I HAD MY DAUGHTER, I took three years away from work to be with her. I had grown up in this tight-knit community in India with lots of relatives. Everyone knew everyone. It had a bubble effect, but it also had a beautiful support effect because there was this “it takes a village” mentality. Children learned from all the adults in the town—not just their parents. In the U.S., we didn’t have any extended family, so I had to provide that support for my daughter. It was startling to go from such a rich community to being in a country where we had the freedom to be anything—but nobody really gave a damn who we were.  

Siva wears the Hailey dress, the Capri earrings, and the Bezel necklace.

I ACTUALLY TOOK A BACKWARDS STEP when I went back to work. I decided to leave counseling and do a lower-level certificate in educational technology. It was my good fortune that I fell into education—there has been nothing more pleasurable in my life. Since then, my internal compass has led me to jobs that made me work hard, helped me grow, and really excited my brain. In education, I was finally in a field where my vocation and my passion were the same. 

THE INTERNATIONAL BACCALAUREATE ADVOCATES FOR CHILDREN TO BE RAISED to grow into their full potential. It’s not a mentality of “academics over everything else.” It’s critical thinking, balance, being caring and compassionate for yourself and others. Those are the skills that eventually translate to leadership. I experience that as well—I can’t lead by being just one way. On any given day, I have to switch from being in a meeting and making quick decisions, to sitting and listening intently to someone. We all need to be able to do both. 

Siva wears the Woolf jardigan, the Lise top, the Crosby skirt, and the Roberta earrings.

OUR FOCUS IS REALLY TO STABILIZE CHILDREN’S SELF-CONFIDENCE and help them develop their own internal compasses. Children today are dealing with so much information; when something happens in the news—like a shooting in Texas—we feel it everywhere. Past generations didn’t have to deal with that. We help children navigate the information while retaining their core values. Boys and girls need this equally; we all need to cultivate compassion. I don’t necessarily focus on “female empowerment,” but rather, the equal empowerment of both genders. 

AS A CHILD, I WAS TAUGHT to be perfectly dressed. You had to be. My parents made sure I was always in neat, ironed clothes that were the right colors and were fashionable for the time. When I moved to the United States at 21, I was completely lost. I had never dressed in the western style before. I had no idea what would look good on me or what the right brands were. My husband was of no help, clearly. But little by little, I found my way, and now I have way too many clothes.

Siva wears the Tory dress, and the Williamina earrings.

I LIKE A CLEAN, DRESSED-UP LOOK, and I travel a lot for work, so I have to stay organized. I pack my office clothing on the top of my suitcase, so if I’m getting off a nine or ten-hour flight, I can change quickly. And on Sundays, I look at my calendar and pick my outfits and accessories for the week. That way, in the morning, I can grab what I had set out and get on with my day. 

MY RELATIONSHIP WITH MY CLOSET is probably in need of some counseling. I’ve lived in so many places and collected so many clothes over the years, and I’m incapable of giving them up. My daughter says they’re not “curated” enough. She loves M.M.LaFleur and is an advocate for buying just a few great pieces and keeping your wardrobe small, so I’m working on that. 

Pittsburgh native Sloane Davidson has always been a connector. As the fourth of six daughters spanning three marriages (more on that later), she grew up navigating complex relationships—and she always felt accountable to her larger community. As an adult, her varied career dipped in and out of different industries and cities. But ultimately, she returned to her roots—both in Pittsburgh and in philanthropy—to launch Hello Neighbor, a nonprofit that matches recently resettled refugee families with local mentors. Below, we talked to Sloane about leaning into empathy, taking the first step, and embracing her “Eat, Pray, Love” moment. 

I AM AN ONLY CHILD, AN OLDEST CHILD, A MIDDLE CHILD, AND A YOUNGEST CHILD because of how my parents divorced and remarried. I’m my parents’ only child together, but I have three older half-sisters from my dad’s first marriage and two younger half-sisters from my mom’s second marriage. In my family, I’ve always been the convener, since I’m the one who connects the older and younger sets of sisters. I also wear a different hat based on who I’m with. Among my dad’s daughters, I’m treated like the youngest. But with my mom and step-dad’s daughters, I’m the oldest, and I look out for the others. I grew up trying to navigate lots of family dynamics, and I think that translates really well to being a CEO. I know how to read a room and make myself valuable, no matter who I’m talking to. 

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I WAS ALWAYS PHILANTHROPIC and motivated to help people. I came home from school one day in seventh grade and was like, “I want to start volunteering.” I didn’t realize until much later in life that that was linked to empathy. And I didn’t realize until much, much later that I over-index in empathy. Now, I know that’s one of my strong suits, but when I was younger, it just meant that I felt everything around me and had an intense desire to give back. 

Sloane wears the Octavia top and the Cobble Hill skirt.

MY FIRST JOB AFTER GRADUATING was in the marketing department of a big accounting firm in Boston, and it was such a crash-and-burn. I performed well, but I was so unhappy. I wasn’t used to the feeling of not liking something—because I had loved school, I loved learning, I loved volunteering. But I dragged my feet every single morning on my way to that job. It was a good lesson for me that I’m not built for big companies.

I DECIDED TO QUIT THAT JOB AND DRIVE ACROSS THE COUNTRY WITH MY THEN-BOYFRIEND. My family thought I was crazy, but when we got to L.A., I found that the nonprofit world was a good fit for my big heart. I worked at a school and then at Starlight Starbright Children’s Foundation. This was 2006, and I was really inspired by the new wave of “social media” that was just emerging. I was so excited to help the organizations I worked with leverage this new way of communicating. Eventually, I was approached to join a startup that focused on social media for social good. I did that for a year, but then the financial crash came in 2008, and everyone got laid off. Even though it didn’t work out, I met a ton of people across the nonprofit space.  

Sloane wears the Taylor dress.

WHEN I WAS 29, AFTER FIVE YEARS IN L.A., I ended up Eat, Pray, Love-ing my life. I broke up with my long-term boyfriend, sold most of my stuff, and bought a one-way ticket to Buenos Aires. I spent the next year traveling and volunteering in a number of countries. That included a six-month Kiva fellowship in the Philippines, where I was really involved with women and girls. I love just sitting on the floor, spending time with women and babies in different villages. It was also the first time I was really on my own—and I learned to be okay with being alone. It gave me a chance to think about what place I wanted to have in the world. I came back from that year very determined to focus on social good opportunities. 

I’D ALWAYS TALKED ABOUT MOVING BACK TO PITTSBURGH, and after a few years in New York, once I was married and pregnant, it seemed like the right time. I really wanted to be near my family, but I wasn’t sure about the next phase of my career. I knew I wanted it to do something that involved building community in Pittsburgh. I decided to do a mid-career master’s at the University of Pittsburgh, where I focused on policy and nonprofit management. I also started volunteering at a refugee resettlement agency in Pittsburgh, where I was basically a sponge—learning as much as I could about the refugee experience.

Sloane wears the Ashley dress.

WHEN THE 2016 ELECTION HAPPENED, I HAD THIS AWAKENING where I realized that if I was ever going to do something that would have an impact, now was the time. I wanted to help refugees from a place of humanity and storytelling. They don’t need people to feel sorry for them—they’re the most resilient people in the world—but they do need support to navigate very complicated American systems. So I put together a framework of what would become Hello Neighbor, and I ran with it. 

WE LAUNCHED IN 2017, and since then, we’ve matched 95 families with local mentors. We’re now impacting hundreds of people’s lives. But even after that very first introduction, I came home and I said to my husband, “If the whole thing were to collapse right now, I’ll feel like I’ve succeeded. Because even that first relationship is a win.” And every relationship we’ve facilitated since then has been a win.

Sloane wears the Taylor dress and the Capri earrings.

WE CHOSE THE NAME “HELLO NEIGHBOR” because I do think the hardest part about giving back or making any kind of meaningful change is that first step of opening the door. It’s not easy—there are fears and unknowns on both sides of the relationship. Our mentors and mentees are essentially being match-made. And after that, they’re building a relationship from scratch. The refugees face a lot of hardship, be it navigating healthcare, education, jobs, housing, or everyday things like budgeting, transportation, and language. A mentor can play a huge role in giving them a sense of home.

THE WORD “MENTOR” IS ACTUALLY NOT MY FAVORITE, because a great mentor is more than that. They’re an ally, an advocate, a supporter, and ultimately a friend that helps you navigate. In my career, I’ve had mentors and I’ve been a mentor. Regardless of which side of the relationship I’ve been on, it’s done something for me. It’s made me feel a certain way. It’s not a one-way street—both the mentor and the mentee should feel a sense of fulfillment. It’s a partnership, and that’s definitely true of our mentors and mentees at Hello Neighbor. 

Sloane wears the Octavia top.

I BELIEVE IN AVOIDING DECISION FATIGUE, especially when it comes to getting dressed. I have two sons, plus my startup (which is kind of like a third child), and a dog. So I really value simplicity, and I wear a lot of black and navy. I try to pick my outfits the night before, and I like the trick of flipping your hangers so you can see when you’ve worn something. 

A LOT OF PEOPLE ENVISION THEIR PHILANTHROPIC JOURNEY as fixed, and yet, everything else in life changes. Jobs, relationships, cities, clothing styles, hobbies—these are always shifting. Your philanthropic involvement can shift too! Sometimes you have time to volunteer, and sometimes you only have time to write a check—and that’s okay. The modern professional woman is stretched more than ever before. More is expected of us, and we expect more of ourselves. I think a lot of people feel guilty for what they can’t do, instead of empowered for what they can do. Whenever someone says to me, “I wish I could do more,” I always tell them, “Whatever you’re doing, it’s enough.”