I am a New Jersey girl. New York City expanded me as a person.
For years, the city was my classroom, my proving ground, and my heartbeat. I built my career there, floor by floor, learning the architecture of businesses from the inside out. I sat in boardrooms, led implementations, solved the problems no one else wanted to touch, and somewhere in between all of it, I built a network of people who trusted me with the things that mattered most to them. Their organizations. Their teams. Their growth.
I am a business strategist and customer experience designer by training and by instinct. I have spent years not just building systems for organizations but developing the people within them, mentoring colleagues, growing talent, and helping business owners find the clarity that turns a good idea into something that actually scales. That became EfficientEdge Strategies. Not a company I planned, but a practice that grew out of everything I had spent years learning to do well.
I also travel. Deeply, intentionally, and as often as life allows. Travel is not just a vacation for me. It is how I refuel. Every city I walk through, every culture I sit inside of, every experience I did not expect teaches me something I bring back home. It sharpens my eye for design and experience, and reminds me that the world is far more creative and generous than any one zip code can contain.
Then 2023 happened.
I had been laid off before throughout my career. Jobs would easily find me and I always landed. This time was different. Being at a senior leadership level changes everything about how you job hunt, and the landscape itself had shifted completely. You do not just send a resume and get a call back. The process is longer, more competitive, and far less forgiving when you are in your 50s than it used to be. The ground shifted in ways I had not prepared for. It is slow and humbling and disorienting in ways that are hard to describe to anyone who has not lived it at this level. I almost lost everything. I watched my savings disappear while I kept showing up, kept interviewing, kept reinventing. And I was not alone. I sat with other executive women who had lost their income and had nowhere to turn. Women who had spent decades being the strong one, the provider, the one who figured it out. And suddenly there was no soft place to land. Job loss doesn’t just empty your bank account. It steals your mental health, your sleep, triggers hair loss, unravels your health, and quietly destroys your confidence – until you barely recognize yourself. From that journey, I founded EmergeHaven. A faith-based nonprofit providing financial and mental health support for women rebuilding financial stability, career, and emotional support after job loss and the economic hardship that follows.
I had owned a vacation home in Florida for years. I had two kitchen leaks in that home while I was back in New Jersey that cost me in flooring and cabinetry, and no one was there to catch either one before the damage was done. When I relocated to Florida full time, I saw the same gap everywhere around me. Part-time homeowners with no trusted eyes on the ground, no one to verify the contractor showed up, no one to make sure things were as they should be while they were away. I had the opportunity to solve something I had lived personally and that the area genuinely needed. EdgeGuard Home Concierge was born from that specific experience.
Around the same time, I decided to turn my front room into a bar and lounge area. I went looking for compact swivel glider chairs and scoured the internet without finding a single thing that matched what I had in mind. Not in design. Not in quality. Not in scale. At the time, as GM of a Florida furniture showroom, I saw customers leave empty handed or have to settle for something they did not love but that fit the space they had. The furniture industry has not kept up with the boom of luxury apts, condos and townhouses which are all a smaller footprint than a home.. EvanaHome followed. The first luxury furniture brand designed around your smaller space, not the other way around.
I have always believed that your home should feel like a sanctuary regardless of how many square feet it occupies. My personal style is what I call Modern Boutique — warm, architectural, and intentional — a design language I developed that blends the elevated feeling of a boutique hotel with the livability of a real home. It lives just as beautifully in 800 square feet as it does in 8,000. What drove me to create EvanaHome was a simple truth I kept running into: the luxury furniture industry designs for sprawling spaces and leaves everyone else to figure it out. Nobody at that level was designing for the way most people actually live today — in smaller, more intentional spaces that deserve the same access, the same quality, and the same elevated experience as any grand estate. EvanaHome exists to change that. Because a smaller space is not a limitation. It is an opportunity to live with more intention, more beauty, and more purpose in every single inch.
And while I was at it, I was still trying to navigate clothing for my GM job at the Florida furniture store, moving through a showroom, warehouse, loading dock, and around the area attending meetings, all in the same day. Nothing existed that was polished, moisture wicking, and actually built for that life. EvanaWear became the sister brand. Polished performance pieces that move with you, not against you.
None of this was mapped out. There was no business plan sitting in a drawer somewhere. There was faith. And a problem. And the refusal to accept that the answer did not exist yet.
When I finally stepped back and looked at what I had built, I got goosebumps. Not because of what each venture is individually, but because of what they are together. A complete ecosystem built from a complete life. Every gap I noticed, every frustration I lived through, every woman I sat beside in her hardest moments became something real.
As a Latina founder born and raised in New Jersey, loving the city vibe, and now building in Central Florida, I am creating what I needed to find. And I am building it with the strategic rigor to make sure it lasts.
None of this scales without great people. I have built trusted teams around each venture precisely because I know what it costs when one person tries to hold everything together. That is the lesson I bring to every client. The ecosystem runs. And I stay available for the work that requires what I do best: coming in, seeing the full picture, sharpening the strategy, and designing the customer and team experience that drives real growth.