At age nine I began saving my allowance to buy GLAMOUR Magazine that captured fashion of-the-moment in its glossy large-format pages. I was a junior trend devotee and enjoyed applying fresh fashion ideas to my own look. From my flower child days of floppy hat, bell bottom jeans and moccasins, to my early career look inspired by menswear, I took borrowed details from each decade to create my own personal style.

As I launched a career in marketing and brand management, I leveraged my personal style as an essential element of my personal brand. By my 30th birthday, I was a Vice President in the technology division of the global marketing firm Fleishman-Hillard, where making new business presentations and advising top brass was the order of the day. Being a young petite woman, I new I needed a powerful sartorial look to assure the C-level executives I counseled that I was an A-level marketing pro.

Upon joining Mitsubishi Electric, as speechwriter and media relations advisor to the Chairman, I was often the only executive woman among gray haired and suited men. I applied my style methodology to amp-up my look to create an even more commanding visual presence that took me in chic style from board room to press room. Further in my career, as co-founder, president and chief marketing officer of the Internet company, The Patent & License Exchange (PL-X), I made classic business suit dressing part of our corporate image. By breaking out of the dot.com khaki mantra, our company used three-piece suiting as a point of differentiation that separated us as a cut above the competition.

Soon after (PL-X) was purchased , I brought my passion for personal branding and style center stage in my career and earned an Associate Arts degree in fashion merchandising from the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising in Los Angeles. Combined with my University of Chicago BA and University of Southern California MBA, my design and merchandising education gave me the foundation to translate my style talent and passion into a fashion-based business.

FIDM Alumni

Fashion Club