False binaries plague our world, erroneous assumptions which are so ingrained that we forget they are suppositions rather than empirical truth. For example, we perceive a bright line between work done for the common good and work done to earn money. However, the two motives may overlap to the point of concentricity.
Several prominent leadership scholars have argued for the adoption of relational leadership models and rejection of legacy entitative theories, proposing a constructivist framework whereby leadership is a function of leaders and followers collaboratively co-creating shared outcomes. It’s the theoretical equivalent of the crew and passengers banding together to put the wings on the plane while it’s in flight. When I consider what’s happening in our world now, the construct (and the analogy) seem apropos. Independently, no single entity (e.g., government, private enterprise, nonprofit) can respond to the myriad challenges we face.
Taking a somewhat different tack, other thinkers have considered the potential of an integrative leadership framework that incorporates various groups in a cooperative model of decision-making. This model reflects the thinking of researchers who are arguing for a distributed leadership framework. Essentially, one side presents a melting pot of leadership and the other proposes a salad bowl. Presently, I see our neighborhoods and communities organizing around the melting-pot framework while our government and commercial companies are adopting the more segmented approach. Neither can be successful without harmonization.
Our success as a society will come down to our ability to smash artificial binaries. The organizations that survive and thrive will be the ones who make their focus the common good. Collaboration and cooperation are the only way forward.
From history major, with side quests in Medieval Studies and chemical engineering, to nonprofit finance leader, Big 4 tax partner, technologist, researcher, and now co-founder of Divine, nothing about my career has been linear. The throughline has always been systems: financial systems, organizational systems, technological systems, and human systems. I have an MBA in Operations and Supply Chain Management and a PhD in Organizational Leadership Psychology, and I’ve spent my career trying to understand how complex systems shape people’s choices, opportunities, wellbeing, and sense of belonging. Today, my work sits at the intersection of psychology, technology, human-centered design, and digital trust. I am co-founder of Divine, an open-source, decentralized social video app built to put creativity back in human hands and replace doomscrolling with joyscrolling. Divine is part of a bigger question I care deeply about: how do we create online spaces that support safety, creativity, identity, and belonging without defaulting to surveillance, extraction, or control? At Divine, I wear a lot of hats across engineering, finance, operations, and strategy, while helping shape the app’s trust, safety, and values work. I focus especially on teen online safety, human-generated content, participatory design, and healthier relationships with technology. I am a postdoctoral alum of Vanderbilt University’s Department of Computer Science, where I worked with Dr. Pam Wisniewski’s Socio-Technical Interaction Research Lab. I continue to write, speak, and research at the intersection of online safety, digital trust, decentralized technology, and youth wellbeing. I was named a Distinguished Fellow at the Institute for Data Integrity in 2023. In 2025, I had the honor of serving as President of Division 13 of the American Psychological Association, the Society of Consulting Psychology. I also live with major depressive disorder and obsessive-compulsive disorder. In 2020, I took a leave from PwC to focus on my mental wellness, and I now speak and write openly about mental health, especially in the workplace and in relation to digital wellbeing. This blog, Seriously Jerk Brain, chronicles much of that journey.
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Seriously, Jerk Brain?! 
“Stronger together”?
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