ABOUT

Hi, I'm Vanessa!

I'm a current Chief Revenue Officer for a boutique cybersecurity firm, a serial entrepreneur and 3x founder, and a self-made millionaire by 40 — after losing everything and going bankrupt first.

So how did I get here?

A week out of college in 2001, I started my first business. No money, no clients, no safety net — just the willingness to figure it all out and the drive to build something. I ran it for seven years and built it into a real living: a six-figure income by twenty-five. To me, that was success. I was doing great, and business was growing.

Then the financial crisis of 2008 smacked me in the face. My clients disappeared overnight — most were affluent private clients who lost their jobs at Lehman and elsewhere. My corporate clients tightened up and pulled things in-house. I was forced to make some hard decisions. I closed the business, I was foreclosed on, and I filed for bankruptcy. It was, to put it mildly, extremely stressful.

But that wasn't the time to wallow — it was the time to regroup, reassess, and make moves. So I rebuilt, bigger and better, leveraging the only things I had left: my resourcefulness, a hard work ethic, a laundry list of skills I'd picked up over the years, and a network I actually knew how to use. I pitched my way into a Chief Operating Officer role at a medical startup that had been a client of mine.

After a few years there, I moved into cybersecurity — and worked my way up from marketing manager supporting the sales team to Chief Revenue Officer running it.

Now I sit where the major decisions get made. And I watch talented people at every level get passed over, get stuck, and get let go — and I can see exactly why. There's a disconnect between what leadership actually values and what people think is valued. I understand the stress senior executives carry at home and at work. I understand Millennials and Gen Z, because I manage them every day. And I understand founders, because I've been one.

What I also learned on the way to the top is that once you're there, almost none of it is about the work — it's about people. It's about navigating complex interpersonal challenges, leveraging strategy, and juggling office politics. Not to mention balancing a real personal life alongside a thriving career — and how to keep growing without sacrificing everything else.

I've been extremely fortunate — in spite of the financial struggle — and my career has let me see business from almost every angle: as a founder, an operator, and an executive. I've managed and mentored the next generation, and I've sat with colleagues deciphering their own unique challenges. My struggles and my successes both put me in a position to give back. And that's exactly what I want to do now.

I learned the hard way.

You don't have to.