WORK WITH ME

As CEO of Empowered Innovation CFAaP LLC, I am often asked how an Artist-Researcher and personal innovation coach became a leading voice on the geopolitical threats facing small U.S. businesses.

The answer lies in a journey that began in the late 1990s, when I shifted from the traditional trajectory of a mixed-media artist to explore how creativity could solve the most complex human and systemic challenges.

I have spent over two decades operating at the edges where others aren’t looking.

Long before “digital sovereignty” and “global trust collapse” were boardroom concerns, I was building the infrastructure for resilient, culturally informed collaboration. My early work—from authoring “Cultural Diversity” for Home Education Magazine (1998) while progressive-homeschooling my three children, to co-authoring Blood Trails with Dr. Pauline Sameshima—was always about one thing: understanding how systems of care, culture, and creativity either sustain us or fail us.

My career has been defined by a refusal to separate strategic action from creative inquiry. Whether I was writing and directing my performance piece “Women Crossings” for the Playwrights on the Rise series, co-founding Cultural Fusion Art as Philosophy with the late Dutch Attention Architect, Ronald Wopereis, or helping orgizations makes sense of the earlier indicators of the patterns you’re seeing today (“Brand Risk Innovation Is Game Changer”, “Art Based Solutions for Ethical Data Analysis”, “Cure For Racism” or “Business Case For Personal Innovation”), I was practicing the very inner leadership I now teach.

Why this matters for you now:

Today, I am sounding the alarm on the “Double Squeeze”—the converging waves of global boycotts and European digital sovereignty that are quietly repricing the revenue of U.S. SMBs. While others focus on surface-level “innovation,” my background in open-source community models and art-based strategic solutions allows me to see the upstream cultural system failures that lead to downstream business crises.

I warned about these shifts decades ago (2008) before doing it again on Substack in 2026 because I saw the guardrails eroding in real-time. My work is no longer just about “thinking differently”; it is about survival and rebuilding. I help leaders move from the exhaustion of constant reaction to the steady clarity of foresight.

From my roots as an Artist-Researcher to my current role as a Cultural Systems Innovation Advisor, I have consistently been ahead of the curve. I don’t just offer thought leadership; I offer a pathway to resilience for those who recognize that the old maps are no longer working.

Let’s work together to create innovative, inclusive, and sustainable solutions that include your unique goals.