Biography

I am a dual passport holder (US and Italian) and have lived in seven countries speaking three languages — English, Italian, and French — with a smattering of Spanish. International projects are my specialty. My B.A. is in international relations with distinction from Mount Holyoke College; my master's degree is in international relations from the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies.

My professional experience began in Atlanta, Georgia, with Atlanta Magazine, shifted to Los Angeles with Whittaker Corporation (a Fortune 500 industrial conglomerate), moved to New York and American Express followed by Burson-Marsteller, then zoomed across the Atlantic to Milan, Italy, with J. Walter Thompson and scores of international companies, followed by freelancing on the French Riviera (Sophia Antipolis) during the tech boom of the 1990s, and again in Italy with dozens of new and continuing clients. My corporate clients run the gamut from internationally known blue chip companies to red-hot startups, and include a prize-winning annual report for Benetton, case studies for IBM, and two award-winning publications for American Express.

My writing career began in high school, when I wrote for New Jersey’s Trenton Times newspaper. I have put down my pen only long enough to pick up with a computer keyboard. My stories have appeared in literally hundreds of publications, from Atlanta Magazine to Zoe Nature, Newsweek to Chocolate News, Swissair to Swiss Re, Fortune to MS, International New York Times to L’internazionale.

My commitment to clients is enriched by continuing community involvement. I headed the Johns Hopkins Alumni Association in Northern Italy from 2001-2011, and am currently its chairperson emeritus. While serving as vice president of the Mount Holyoke Club of Italy between 2003-2012, I organized one of the alumnae association’s most successful international symposia in Turin, Italy, in 2011. I was chairman of Democrats Abroad - Milan from 2003-2005 and again from 2009-2011, then vice chairman from 2013-15, and currently advise on communications at the national level. I am a long-time member of the Stampa Estera Alta Italia (Italian Foreign Press Club) and serve on their credentials committee.

I was a founding member of the Professional Women's Association of Milan and wrote the original bylaws for that organization. I served on the board of directors of what is today the International School of Nice. I was an officer of the New York chapter of the International Association of Business Communicators in the US.

Add to these activities an Italian husband, two quadrilingual sons, and a succession of multicultural dogs, and you can see how my global perspective is reinforced daily.

Here’s how a third-party website describes me: