I grew up an only child with my single mom in Dallas, Texas. And from an early age I was a massive nerd. I was obsessed with watching shows like Star Trek or Babylon 5. I couldn’t stop reading the works of Isaac Asimov or Arthur C. Clarke. But my mom and I didn’t have much. So I started early on to wonder about the contrast between the worlds I was enamored with - the stories that everyone seemed to love and aspire to - and the world around me. A world where people struggled to eat. To have a place to live. To get an education. To live with security. My mother did everything she could to protect my future. That included always encouraging me to dream about a better world.

I received an undergraduate degree from the University of Pittsburgh. And I started my career committed to doing work that made the world better and more like those worlds I dream of. I thought I had to do this within nonprofits. So I dedicated myself to nonprofit work in the US and abroad in places like Costa Rica. I even worked as an Associate Producer for THINK which airs on NPR nationally out of the NPR Affiliate in Dallas. But it was the great recession. And jobs didn’t pay enough. I struggled to pay my student loans and even have enough food to eat. So I got my Masters Degree from the University of London SOAS. I wanted to do international development work. But my mother was getting sicker. I moved back home to Dallas where there are no jobs for the expertise I’d invested in. So I was struggling and had nothing as I watched my mother get sicker and sicker before passing away in 2013. And I couldn’t help her.

Over time I learned that I didn’t need to work for a nonprofit or government agency to have an impact. I became aware of the philanthropic sector, corporate responsibility, and social impact tech. I ran the first no-minimum DAF platform. Consulted with large brands and the federal government on Corporate Responsibility initiatives and strategies. I’ve led product teams as a Chief Product Officer of a Y Combinator backed startup, as Director of Product and later Head of Industry Solutions for Salesforce.org Philanthropy Cloud. I’ve served on boards and as Head of Innovation & Philanthropy at Giving Compass. I’ve invested in and started failed startups. But I’ve also scaled startups like The Regular where I’m the Founder & CEO of a company that invests in community based businesses all over the country and the world that bring people together. But at core I believe in innovating for good.

I oppose the Trump administration. I oppose arrogance, bluster, cruelty, and the glorification of ignorance and hatred. I’m also tired of the endless lies and hypocrisy of conservative movements that change their positions and values to suit whatever argument they want to make rather than the reality of this world we all share. And oddly enough that hypocrisy always seems to create policies that just make the rich richer at the expense of all of the rest of us. And then I walked out of a bar in my adopted hometown. I love Washington, DC. I take long walks here. I ran for office here. I enjoy the nightlife and walkability, the museums and the passionate people. The community and the bars. And there, all of sudden, there were soldiers with machine guns. People from places like Mississippi and Ohio. Using our home and our lives as a political toy. Playing around casually with military enforcement of local laws all without the input of the people who live here. Nothing good is build without listening. No product. No company. No movement. Nothing. Yet it’s clear that the voices of so many of us on both sides of the ideological divide have been silenced. Even things that are broadly popular are never priorities. The only thing that seems to impact the world is power and money. But our money is our power. And I believe we’ve got to act with the intent to use our money - as consumers, investors, and founders - as an instrument of the worlds we want to see. That’s what those in power have done.

That’s why I built Your Boycott List and created a vision to build a broader accelerator where I can use my knowledge of tech and innovation to drive more tech for good specifically as alternatives to “just tech for money”. I don’t know if it will be successful or useful. And I don’t know if there will be backlash from those afraid of you having the information you need to make this choice. But I want to act in a way that I know how with my expertise. Because the world can be better. It can be our turn to shape it. We just have to vote. At the ballot box. But also with our money.