Who am I? - is easier to answer than - “Where are you from?”

I started life like many little girls: parents who loved me, a younger brother to play with, and a childhood shaped by familiar rhythms.

Then, when I was seven, everything changed. My family moved from middle America to South Africa.

Life was suddenly far less simple. A new country. A new school. New friends with people who didn’t look like me, speak like me, or think like me.

It was exciting. — It was disorienting. — It was formative.

It was also the beginning of learning how to live between cultures.

Years later, I married my husband, and together we moved to New Zealand and raised three boys. Parenting them, across cultures deepened both my understanding of identity and my commitment to creating spaces where people feel they truly belong.

Today, we call New Zealand home.

Learning to belong in more than one world and culture has shaped the work I do today.

As a speaker, teacher, mentor, and coach, I draw on both lived experience and formal training to support others in understanding their cross-cultural identity — not just navigating it, but thriving within it.