I am a banking, audit, and risk professional whose career has been shaped by curiosity, public service, and a belief that strong institutions depend on both technical competence and personal accountability.
Originally from South Dakota, I began my career as a federal bank examiner. That experience gave me an early view into how financial institutions operate, how leadership decisions affect risk, and how regulators evaluate the safety and soundness of an organization.
Since then, my career has taken me through public-sector audit, banking, consulting, and fintech. Along the way, I discovered internal audit as a profession that brings together many of my interests: finance, governance, regulation, fraud, organizational behavior, and the challenge of turning complex information into useful decisions.
Today, I live in Washington, DC, where I continue to build on those experiences while engaging with a city shaped by policy, history, culture, and institutional leadership.
My professional path has allowed me to evaluate organizations from several different positions: regulator, auditor, advisor, and internal leader.
Beginning as a bank examiner taught me to approach institutions as complete systems. Financial performance, governance, risk, culture, and management decisions cannot be evaluated in isolation.
Moving into internal audit allowed me to work more closely with organizations as they identified risks, strengthened controls, and responded to change. Consulting broadened that perspective further by exposing me to different companies, leadership styles, operating models, and stages of organizational maturity.
Each transition has increased the complexity of the work I lead and strengthened my ability to understand how different stakeholders view the same issue.
I am especially interested in the forces that shape institutions and individual opportunity.
How financial systems, incentives, regulation, and access to capital affect people, businesses, and communities.
How organizations make decisions, establish expectations, respond to misconduct, and create cultures where accountability is real rather than symbolic.
Why people make the decisions they do, particularly when incentives, pressure, authority, risk, and group dynamics are involved.
How institutions balance competing interests, exercise authority, and build public trust through transparency, oversight, and effective leadership.
These interests influence both my professional work and the subjects I explore through reading, writing, and conversation.
Outside of work, I enjoy bicycling, long walks/hikes, nonfiction, theater, live music, and travel.
Travel has been one of the most consistent sources of perspective in my life. Experiencing different cities, institutions, communities, and traditions has reinforced how much context shapes the way people live and the way organizations operate.
Since moving to Washington, DC, I have particularly enjoyed exploring the city’s neighborhoods, museums, theaters, public spaces, and historical areas. I value experiences that provide a stronger understanding of how communities develop and how culture, policy, and history intersect.
I also value time with friends and the relationships that keep life grounded beyond professional achievement.
Strong conclusions require more than surface-level information. I value asking better questions, understanding context, and remaining open to evidence that challenges an initial assumption.
Leadership requires clear expectations, direct communication, and a willingness to take responsibility for both decisions and outcomes.
Technical knowledge matters, but judgment and character determine how that knowledge is applied.
I believe professional development comes from progressively more difficult work, honest feedback, and a willingness to operate outside familiar environments.
I value opportunities to contribute to professional organizations, educational institutions, and communities that have helped shape my own development.
My career has been defined by movement across institutions, industries, cities, and professional perspectives.
Those experiences have strengthened my belief that the most effective professionals understand more than their own role. They understand the institution, the people within it, the environment around it, and the consequences of the decisions being made.
That broader perspective continues to shape how I approach leadership, audit, risk, and the work of strengthening institutions.