About | Clapp & Co.

My Story

I was creative from the beginning. I loved making things. I loved writing and design. I loved to dream. I was quiet and empathetic by nature. I preferred the company of elders and the deep conversations we would have. I preferred to chart my own course and follow my own interests.

I always had a deep inner drive to be successful. I earned an MBA by twenty-four. I completed my design studies at RISD by twenty-seven. And I started my own strategy and design firm at the height of the 2008 financial crisis. Everyone told me to find a job, seek security and consistency. But those words went against everything I believed.

The next decade brought far more success than I ever imagined. My business was thriving. I was working with notable clients across industries around the world. It became synonymous with good design.

From the outside, I was the picture of success. Yet deep within, I was unhappy. I would wake up every day with a sinking feeling I could not explain. I felt I was living someone else’s life. My days were all the same: working from dawn to night on projects that no longer brought me joy, work I had lost my passion for long ago.

Deep in the night, I would wonder. Is this all there is? How can this possibly go on forever? Can I even begin again? I was questioning everything. My career, my purpose, the very foundation I had built my life on. I knew something had to change. I know now that this is what an inflection point feels like from the inside.

So the journey began. I immersed myself in human potential, presence, the inner dynamics of leadership. I trained as a coach and studied with some of the best. For the first time in years, I was not competing. I was creating from a different place entirely. And I began coaching leaders through transformations of their own.

Then I noticed something. Coaching was transforming leaders, but they kept returning to organizations designed for who they used to be. And over a decade of strategy work had shown me the reverse: good strategies failing because they did not account for the leaders who had to carry them. Coaching changed the leaders but not the business. Strategy changed the business but not the leaders.

That insight became my work. The integration of what is usually kept separate. Looking back, every chapter was leading here. Today, I partner with leaders and organizations at inflection points, because I have stood at one.

How I Work

I work with a small number of leaders and organizations at a time, from Dubai and Boston, with clients worldwide. Some of these partnerships are one-on-one, others are with a full leadership team, or reach across an entire organization. My team of associates are strategists, coaches, and facilitators I have worked with for years.