Trained as an engineer.
Built a career understanding people.
Not because I wanted to build things, but because I wanted to understand them. What problem is this solving? For whom? Does the solution actually fit the person on the other end of it?
That question followed me out of engineering and into marketing, where I spent twenty years doing the work at some of the most recognized consumer brands in the world. L'Oreal. Avon. Essie. Walgreens Boots Alliance. Categories where the consumer relationship is personal, the competition is relentless, and the difference between a brand that lasts and one that fades usually comes down to one thing: whether someone truly understood the person they were building for.
I led brand restages that reversed years of decline. I launched products that became category benchmarks. I built teams that held creative vision and commercial rigor in the same hand. And across all of it, the skill underneath the work was the same one I started with as an engineer: find the real problem before you design the solution.
That is what Core Consumer Lab exists to do.
I work with growth-stage consumer brands, founders who have built something real and are ready to scale it with intention. The work looks different depending on where you are. Sometimes it is getting specific about who your core consumer actually is. Sometimes it is sharpening a brand message that has started to drift. Sometimes it is building the team and operating system your next stage requires. And sometimes it is having a senior partner in the room who has seen enough to know what matters and what does not.
I identify the human tension at the center of your brand challenge. Then I build the strategy around resolving it.
I never really left engineering. I just changed what I was designing.
A few things worth knowing
I work with a small number of clients at a time. That is intentional. The work requires proximity, not volume.
I have worked inside the world's largest beauty and personal care companies and alongside founders building from the ground up. I know what each stage feels like from the inside, and I know what it takes to move from one to the next.
I am based in New York.