When I was eight years old, my second grade teacher, Mrs. Tobia, mentioned to me that I should become a writer after reading one of my essays. I’ve been writing ever since.

My first clips were self-published — newsletters on construction paper chronicling events such as announcing the birth of my sister. Fast forward to graduating from Rutgers, William Morrow and Company in the Children’s Books Marketing Department, where I was quickly promoted to Associate Publicist. I worked with the Publicity Manager to create press kits, write press releases and pitch letters. On nights and weekends, I wrote freelance articles for The Randolph Reporter and Mt. Olive Chronicle in northern New Jersey.

Armed with my clips and public relations experience, I landed the Assistant Director of Communications position at Teachers College, Columbia University, where I wrote and edited the College’s publications as well as speeches, press releases, and media alerts. While at Teachers College, I earned my Master’s degree from Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism and published articles in The Manhattan Times in Washington Heights and Inwood, Columbia Magazine and the Courier-News in New Jersey.

A year later, I took a position at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in the Human Resources Department to write, edit and produce the staff newsletter. From there, I worked in the Labor Law department at Sabin, Bermant and Gould, LLP, where I worked on internal communications for cable stations and newspapers. Then I joined Corporate Communications department at Moody’s, starting and a Communications Specialist and promoted to Assistant Vice President of employee communications for Moody’s, its corporate parent and subsidiaries. In 2012, I was recruited by McKinsey & Company, where I worked in both internal and external communications.

Since 2014, I’ve been in the Corporate Affairs and Communications department at American Express. When I joined the company, I focused on campaigns to help all employees at Amex adopt new technology and systems. For the last few years, I’ve been working on internal and external communications for Global Merchant and Network Services, including Accertify & InAuth, subsidiaries that specialize in fraud protection and the prepaid card business, which includes Bluebird, Serve and gift cards.