MY STORY
Coaching is the ultimate form of hosting
Hosting is a relationship between whoever opens the door and whoever walks through it. It starts with arrival — with knowing where you’re from. It ends with knowing what you stand for. Together they create a lingering experience before the guest continues their journey.
That defines my approach to coaching.
WHERE IT ALL STARTED
Portuguese roots. California branches.
Old world. New world. European. California girl. For most of my life, these identities coexisted fluidly. So imagine my surprise when my husband walked into my office in San Francisco and told me he had received a job offer in Portugal. I burst into tears — not the reaction either of us expected.
We leapt anyway. At the peak of our careers. With a house and a community and a life that had taken years to build.
I suddenly found myself in the precarious position of being an immigrant — in my family’s country. It is at this curious intersection where my meditation on identity and belonging came into full swing.
CULINARY
Finding home at the table.
As a child, I wanted to run a carnival. I mapped out my entire backyard with plans for rides, games, food stands — the whole thing. Even then, I had this impulse to build spaces where people felt welcomed, well-fed, and connected to each other.
That hospitality streak never left. It’s shown up as event planning, as leading culinary tours, and now, in how I coach.
My time with you should feel like an unfolding conversation, not a session boxed in by therapy-adjacent frameworks and five-point plans.
As an adult, I ran a supper club out of our home in San Francisco. Twelve people, one seating, one big table, multiple courses. By the end of the night, strangers who’d arrived alone were exchanging numbers and making plans to travel together. That’s what I love building — a space that feeds people’s bodies and, somehow, their connections to each other too.
But my favorite part of all of it was the time before the guests arrived: standing in the kitchen with my mom, listening to stories about growing up in Portugal, laughing, building the night together before anyone else walked in.
TRAINING & BACKGROUND
What I bring to the table
Internationally certified coach
International Coaching Federation, ACC level certification; means I am committed to the highest ethical standards and practices of coaching.
Foundations in positive psychology
Credential from the University of Pennsylvania; I studied how to focus not on the problem but on the possibility.
Focus on emotional intelligence
Credential from Case Western University, where I learned about the difference between coaching for compliance and tapping into the ideal self.
Culinary training
Starting with my mother in the kitchen and moving on to bootcamps at the Culinary Institute of America, California Culinary Academy, and Tante Marie Cooking School in San Francisco.
A career in leadership communications
Before becoming a coach, I helped executives get out of their own way to communicate in ways that inspired and motivated others.
COACHING
Greeting you at the threshold.
As an internationally accredited coach, I partner with people standing at thresholds — not to push them through, but to help them understand what they’re carrying, what they want to leave behind, and what they most want to walk toward.
I don’t believe transitions are emergencies. I believe they are invitations — often disguised as disruption — to build something that belongs more fully to you.
WHAT I BELIEVE
You are resourceful.
There’s no shortage of people promoting themselves as the ones with the answers — hawking the framework, the five steps, the program that finally fixes you. You don’t need fixing. You need someone to help you trust what you already know.
Curiosity beats certainty.
Curiosity softens. Certainty hardens. I help you hold the question a beat longer before you reach for the answer. You have permission to get curious about your own life.
You can't taste a recipe.
A plan is not the same as change. Nothing happens until you gather what you need and make something of it. I’m here to help you turn the plan into something nourishing.
Are you ready to find yourself at home?
Before we find time to talk, I’d love to know a little about where you are right now. A few quick questions — it takes just a couple minutes, nothing formal, just enough for our conversation to start in the right place. Just between us, no pressure either way.
