How did you fit your education into your life? (Working full/part time, balancing with other responsibilities, meeting the on-campus requirement, etc.)
Working full-time in a very demanding executive leadership position and parenting two children through high school and into college was a challenge. However, I found that the online class experience, particularly the asynchronous classes, at Harvard Extension School allowed for flexibility. I could participate in classes on weekends and after work hours, sometimes writing far into the night. That said, I took only one or two classes a semester, which allowed me to finish on my schedule while prioritizing my family and balancing my career needs as well.
How has your Harvard Extension School (HES) experience helped you throughout your career journey?
My HES experience provided me with much of the deep psychological knowledge and experience to be able to start my own organizational design and leadership development firm, Harmonia Leadership Strategies. During most of my time at HES, I was a senior executive at a privately held natural gas exploration and production company, Olympus Energy. I found that the classwork at HES allowed me to use that increased knowledge to support my team and their leadership journey, bringing new and challenging ideas to help all of us grow. Going forward, I am so excited to bring that deep knowledge and experience to support my clients at Harmonia.
What did you learn about your own capabilities through the rigor of your coursework?
Initially, I wasn’t sure if I would be able to be successful in this full effort — prioritizing my family while juggling my demanding workload and the challenging classes at HES. I had completed my first master’s degree over 25 years ago and hadn’t taken a “formal” class since. I quickly learned that the writing and ideation skills that I had developed over my career were my superpowers and were just what I needed for success.
The final class of my HES journey was Creating and Leading Team Dynamics, led by Dr. Ryan McCreedy. The class helped me pull together everything that I had learned in my time at HES and pushed me to think about the work that I wanted to do with Harmonia in a different way — through the lens of teams, systems, and organizations as opposed to just individuals. I’m so thankful for the full experience at HES, but especially for Dr. McCreedy’s guidance and encouragement.
What does earning a Harvard degree mean to you?
I was a first-generation college student, and the first in my entire extended family to earn a master’s degree, much less two, and one of them from Harvard. I believe in higher education as one path to success — and it is my chosen path, one which my parents, especially my father, strongly encouraged. When I stepped foot on Harvard’s campus as part of the in-person experience in January 2025, the first thing I thought was “my dad would have been so proud to see me here.”
What was the expectation you had of Harvard?
I fully expected Harvard to be academically rigorous, and it was. But it was also human, global, fascinating, and somehow connected, even during asynchronous classes.
Describe your Extension experience in one word.
Elevating.
