GILDED KNIGHT: A NEW JOURNEY

Never underestimate the business idea on your hard drive. In 2009, during a short bout of unemployment, I came up with a concept that served as the beginnings of “Gilded Knight Consulting.” Pauses often give you an opportunity to assess your priorities, passions and life goals, and during this time I toyed with the idea of full time entrepreneurship while applying for numerous jobs. Although the details for Gilded Knight were still being developed, it was clear that the business would be grounded in one of my core values – integrity. I envisioned our company serving as a “knight” for our clients, valiantly standing up for them and empowering them to strategically execute in their respective fields. After a few months, I landed a job in D.C., and the business idea simmered in my mind for eleven years. As my career in the workforce gained steam, Gilded Knight continued to remain as a potential (eventual) pathway.

Social impact is simply a part of who I am. I have always sought to add value and ultimately change lives at every point of my career, with a clear through line of creating access and opportunity for people. Direct alignment between personal values and professional responsibilities have always remained important to me, and I’ve intentionally only worked for places and causes I’m deeply connected to. The sweet spot for any career lies in the intersection between an evident problem and a passion that drives you.  Having worked in both the public and private sector, my blend of experiences have ranged from grassroots oriented work in campaigning to community engagement, to public affairs, to youth development, and community engagement. Often finding solutions and creating programs with an interdisciplinary approach.

After four years of working for President Obama’s presidential foundation, running his impact work, in targeted communities across the nation, I strongly felt that there was something more. If this feeling persists after working for one of your personal heroes, a dream job that you love, it’s an idea and passion worth exploring. After a decade on my hard drive, I opened up the business idea folder once again, knowing that it was time to step out and launch Gilded Knight Consulting.

There is an unlimited freedom and flexibility for innovation, growth and creativity that comes with being a founder. I had witnessed many founders and great mentors over the years, owning how they lived and earned, creating incredible work environments and culture, defining their organization on their values, and making measurable impact. Coupled with the years of experience in cross-sector social impact work, I am excited to focus on this new adventure.

At Gilded Knight Consulting, we help organizations and leaders across both private, nonprofit and social sectors reach their full potential. Services include social impact strategy, donor advising, staffing and recruitment, and organizational development. Beyond this, we tailor solutions to fit the needs of each of our clients.

Organizations (whether private corporations, government agencies, philanthropic foundations) tend to consider the story they want to tell, and build a program or event around their desired narrative. Every step of my career, I have sought to flip that equation on its head and make people ask the question, “how are we actually going to change the lives of those we’re working with, independent of what the headline will be?” Beyond the press release, what are the real things that we need to do to actually accomplish impact?

The pandemic shifted the field and exposed and magnified many deficiencies and inequities. Normal methods of operation don’t work anymore. The playbook that organizations, agencies and philanthropies had over the last several decades is simply defunct. Now, the very thin piece of fabric that was holding everything together really is being ripped to shreds by the status of today’s environment. It’s impacting how companies market and deliver their work, how governments provide services, and how nonprofits develop and implement their programing. 

One thing is for sure: we need to rebuild, retool and rethink how organizations do their work. This is why I launched Gilded Knight. An interdisciplinary approach to how to develop programming, how you engage in philanthropy, how you hire, screen and recruit talent. You have to retool all those things because we live in a different world. If you don’t adapt and if you’re not incredibly intentional about being forward thinking, the impact you desire to see will not be maximized. It’s not about returning to pre-pandemic norms, but thinking about the world that will exist as we continue on our trajectory – the world and realities that will exist decades from now.

The development of this company is deeply personal and pulls together the most critical elements of who I am and what I have always stood for: fairness, equity and improved access to opportunity. Simply put, Gilded Knight is another extension of how I hope to change the world for the better – by helping others drive more meaningful impact. 

This journey wouldn’t be the same without many of you (friends, colleagues, mentors, and fellow founders), so I look forward to sharing more online and hope you will join me for the ride.