LIFE IS A ACOLLECTION OF SIDE QUESTS
In a lot of ways I have had a traditional journey so far, but with a lot of fun side-quests along the way. For the boring basics, I was born and raised in Oregon, USA. For university, many of my friends from home stayed near, going to colleges in Oregon, California, and Arizona but I wanted a completely different life experience. The line I go back to is that I wanted to see who I was in a vacuum. We spend our childhood being shaped by the people and experiences around us, and I had this sense of curiosity of who I was beyond all of the people, places, and experiences that had shaped me so far. So, if you draw a diagonal line from where I grew up across the entire country, you land at Clemson University in South Carolina. I joined the Honors College and studied Corporate Finance and Accounting.
From there, after meeting my now-husband Brady, we moved to Washington DC and I joined EY as a management consultant in their Financial Services Organization for the next 5 years.
But life always throws you a curveball, and the European life came calling. My husband, the academic that he is, accepted a spot at the Barcelona School of Economics and in 2019 we moved to Barcelona for the first time. We fell in love with this city, and a second master’s degree later for him, a PhD in progress, and now a master’s degree for me, we have called Barcelona home for a total of 4 years.
I grew up as a musical theatre kid and spent a lot of my childhood in intensive summer camps, vocal lessons, piano lessons, and the like. Through a lot of hard work and many strokes of good luck, I started a music career at the age of 13. I was accepted into a record label development program and created a demo album (still on Spotify under Tabi Davis LOL) at 13 and fell in love with being on stage. This is a crazy side adventure I know, but it really shaped my comfort and confidence in front of crowds and taught me the value of my voice even when I am the least experienced or am struggling with imposter syndrome.
As I have moved through my career and now am starting my own company, my favorite part of work is public speaking and presentations. I am very much an extroverted introvert, and while I need the alone time to think and process, my energy comes from connecting with others and I feel that energy most clearly when speaking publicly and presenting. Through the MBA, we are taught to take inventory of the things that give us energy and inspire us and that was honestly how I found the confidence to start building a startup to provide better grief resources to employees during their bereavement leave and beyond.
This is not a very simple segue into grief, but my honest answer is that grief makes me feel most alive. Losing someone close to you makes you cherish all the details of life, not just the extraordinary moments. I also feel most alive in nature – hiking, surfing, etc. Something about feeling small in the greater expanse of the world gives a certain perspective and offers space to reflect on where your life is now.
Having a creative outlet is invisible but essential to me. My background in finance and consulting didn’t leave a lot of room for creativity and I believe for a lot of us who work at desks and spend the day behind the computer, working with your hands is very important. So, at any point in time, I have a literal stack of projects across crochet, knitting, beaded embroidery, sewing, baking – you name it, I am trying it.
Invisible but Essential 