When I launched my sauce company in 2018, I’d already been working in food for years - As a Specialty Buyer for Whole Foods, as a researcher, and in recipe development and food media/ecomm. I thought I knew the food industry.

I’d really only scratched the surface.

Until that point, I’d dragged myself along in a public policy career in which I felt misaligned and out of whack. I took that Whole Foods job as an interim step because I needed some income while I looked for other work. To my surprise, I loved it, and within a couple of months, I was promoted to Buyer of the seven-figure Specialty Department (RIP to the WF Specialty department) thus beginning a my itch to build something myself.

In 2018, my cofounder and I launched not just co. and spent seven years growing it into a nationally distributed and beloved sauce brand before shutting it down in 2025.

After winding down that business, I took some time to figure out what I was good at, and what I loved. Ultimately, that lead me to found Tenacious Ops, where I work as a fractional COO to help emerging F&B brands position themselves to scale operationally.