About me

I work with leaders of small organizations who care deeply about the work - and who are carrying far more of it than any one person should.

I'm originally from Spain, where my background is in Tourism. After immigrating to Canada I moved into the arts sector, and I've spent the past 10+ years working almost exclusively with arts and culture organizations.

For seven of those years, I was the Executive Director of Mural Routes. I stepped into the role during a founder transition, three months after being hired as Program Manager. Like a lot of EDs, I learned on the job.

The focus there had always been on ambitious programs, which is what small organizations do. Internal systems came second. So the knowledge, the history, the relationships, and the decisions had lived with one person - and then, suddenly, with me.

I know that pressure well. To know, to hold, and to not drop anything, when most of it is sitting in your head.

What helped in the end wasn't working harder. It was building systems that matched the reality of a small organization: limited time, limited money, and people who care a lot about doing good work.

And building them around how people actually work, rather than how a system says they should. That's the thing I believe most about this work. Most systems don't fail because they're badly designed - they fail because they ask someone to become a different kind of person in order to use them.

I'm also a parent, which has made my relationship to work a lot clearer. Time is limited and valuable, and systems should respect that.

Here's the honest reason I do this. When I was in the role, I was often alone in it - figuring out the systems on late nights with no one to ask. I don't want that for the leaders I work with. I want to be the support I wish I had.

By the end, my own weeks looked completely different - far fewer internal meetings, real time with peers and funders, actual room for planning. The organization didn't fall apart. It ran better. And when I left, I handed it over with the systems, documentation and roadmap in place.

That experience shapes how I work now.