My career has focused on one question: how do you move good ideas through institutions that are skeptical, divided, or resistant to change?
As a prosecutor, I learned the art of persuasion in its most direct form. I had to take complicated facts, anticipate skepticism, and make a clear, credible case to judges and juries. I handled serious felony cases, including sexual assault, robbery, and attempted murder, and argued before the Colorado Supreme Court. That work taught me that persuasion is rarely about saying more. It is about understanding your audience, identifying what matters most, and building an argument they can trust.
Later, as the executive director of a nonprofit serving victims of domestic and sexual violence, I had to do more than make the case for change. I had to build it. I helped create the region’s first Child Advocacy Center, bringing together law enforcement, prosecutors, medical professionals, service providers, funders, and community leaders around a shared approach. Turning an idea into a functioning program meant building support across institutions with different priorities, incentives, and ways of working.
I saw the same challenge from another angle during five years on city council. Whether I was spearheading the city’s first ethics policy, helping establish a co-responder program for the police department, or working on affordable housing, early childhood, and public transportation, very little happened because everyone agreed at the outset. Progress depended on listening well, understanding competing interests, finding common ground, and building enough trust to move forward.
Today, I lead a policy team at a nonpartisan think tank in Washington, D.C. Persuasion and coalition-building are central to my work. I work with policymakers across the political spectrum on complex and often politically sensitive issues, translating research into practical policy ideas and figuring out how to make those ideas credible to people who may not begin from the same assumptions. That means understanding the political environment, anticipating objections, finding unexpected points of agreement, and building coalitions capable of turning an idea into policy.
That experience shapes my speaking and training work. I help people make stronger cases for difficult ideas, persuade skeptical audiences, build support across disagreement, and move from a good idea to meaningful action. My speaking experience includes presentations to the National League of Cities and the National Conference of State Legislatures, appearances on C-SPAN, and customized trainings for organizations and businesses.
