When Resilience Masks Design Failure: The Disability Tax at Work
We often celebrate resilience at work without asking what made…
Inclusion isn’t a program. It’s how we build, for our organization and for everyone we serve.
ABOUT ME
I build structure that moves organizations beyond one-off initiatives toward opportunity and belonging at scale. I work with the people closest to the problem to shape solutions, not around them. Fewer barriers means people spend less energy navigating access and more on doing their best work. I’ve spent two decades across government, nonprofit, and private sector leadership, and it always starts the same way: with people, connecting strategy to execution and governance to practice.
I build the structure that makes accessibility and disability inclusion durable, which means standards, governance that holds through a reorg, and partnerships that keep the work honest.
I start with the people closest to the work, get clear on what matters most, and build teams around it, because priorities have to be settled before programs are worth building.
If someone has to compensate to participate fully, the design needs to change.
WORK & IMPACT
At Amazon, I lead global accessibility and disability inclusion strategy reaching employees and customers in more than 60 countries. I provide single-threaded leadership on decisions that shape inclusive outcomes enterprise-wide, and I build the standards and governance models that make accessibility how the business operates, not an initiative layered on top of it. I partner with external organizations and advocates, so Amazon’s approach reflects what the disability community actually needs.
As Chair of CTA’s Accessibility and AgeTech Working Group, I lead an industry effort to connect technology innovation with what older adults and people with disabilities actually need. The group brings companies and advocates together and builds the guidance that helps companies make technology more accessible.
I led PVA’s national veteran workforce development program, serving disabled veterans with complex barriers to employment. I rebuilt the operating model and built the employer relationships that drove a 27% increase in client placements in one year. Then I launched a national virtual engagement program, expanding our reach without lowering the high-touch standard the program was known for.
I directed operations for Hiring Our Heroes, the Chamber Foundation’s national veteran employment program. I built relationships with local chambers and the business community so transitioning service members, veterans, and military spouses could find work in their new communities, and I built the events that empowered those communities to welcome and integrate them.
As International Programs Director for Wounded Warrior Project, I partnered with senior military leadership to support service members with injuries and disabilities medically evacuated to Landstuhl Regional Medical Center, the largest U.S. military hospital outside the continental United States. I stabilized and scaled the international programs, including resiliency support for the military medical teams who cared for them. I also directed the $3.8 million annual budget and the partnerships that made it possible.
At the American Red Cross, I led policy and program development for Service to the Armed Forces. I built national programs, including Coping with Deployments and Reconnection Workshops, and established the process that distributed $5 million in federal grant funding to more than 300 offices nationwide. I led a team of six, and I advanced into that role from federal relations, where I’d advocated for the organization before Congress and the Executive Branch.
At the White House Office of Management and Budget, I served as liaison to Congress on the federal budget, management, and policy agenda. I also built the internal relationships across the Executive Office of the President, relationships that let me manage the review and approval process for more than 168 Administration policy statements.
BOARD SERVICE
ASAP builds creative communities where veterans and their loved ones thrive through the arts, combating isolation and building resilience. This community has been part of my life's work. It's been an honor to serve alongside them, and I even completed ASAP's own Storytelling Bootcamp myself.
I'm passionate about adaptive sports. Access to play is access to community and health, and that's why I serve on the NWBA board. Wheelchair basketball is one of the most accessible team sports for kids with disabilities, and NWBA supports players at every age, from their first game to the Paralympic stage.
WID advances the rights and opportunities of more than one billion people with disabilities on a global scale. I serve on the board because I believe disability rights and opportunity belong everywhere.
Economic policy shapes lives, and I believe people with disabilities belong in that conversation, not on the outside of it. I serve on the D20 Steering Committee to make sure disability inclusion is part of G20 policy discussions among the world's major economies.
SPEAKING
On accessibility, leadership, and building inclusive systems at scale.
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