Everything I’ve ever done has centered on people. Understanding them, helping them figure things out, building relationships. It’s not something I decided to be good at. It’s just always been there, this insatiable curiosity about what makes people tick and why they do what they do.

I grew up the daughter of Bengali immigrants who came from Kolkata and built a life here from scratch. They taught me to work hard, to take care of the people around you, and to build community wherever you land. That upbringing gave me a view of the world and of leadership that has always been fundamentally people-centered.

I’ve spent twenty years advising some of the most complex institutions in the world, from C-suites and boards navigating change, to government leaders managing crisis, to startups trying to create something from nothing. At Ernst & Young, UnitedHealth Group, the Federal Reserve, and the United Nations, I learned what high-performing teams look like from the inside. What I came to believe, after all of it, is this: every problem a company has, whether it shows up in the bottom line, the culture, or the boardroom, is a people problem. Fix the people side, and most everything else follows.

That is what I’ve built my work around. I teach Designing Your Life at Northwestern University, where I give students a science-backed approach to shaping a life with intention. I bring those same tools to companies through keynotes, workshops, and consulting, helping teams and leaders create cultures where people can do their best work.

I’m a design thinker, which means I approach every problem, whether it’s an individual’s career or a company’s culture, with curiosity, creativity, and the conviction that there’s always a better version worth working toward.

I work best with driven people and teams who want more: more direction, more belonging, a clearer sense of what comes next. Whether that’s a keynote for thousands, a consulting engagement with a leadership team, or one-on-one coaching with someone at a turning point, the question underneath all of it is the same one I find endlessly interesting: how do you design a life, or a company, that’s genuinely worth having?