I lost a dream job, along with thousands of others, after an executive order was signed in January 2025. And I did what so many of us do: I started job hunting and networking. In those conversations with other professional women, I kept hearing the same themes over and over. We were overqualified and carrying big dreams, but struggling to market ourselves as individuals. Imposter syndrome was taking over. The projects we wanted to go after were often too large to take on alone. We needed flexibility and autonomy, but also community and support. 

At the same time, there was this shared sense that the traditional American way of working - that cycle of hustle, grind, and burn out - just isn’t working anymore. We’re navigating real lives alongside our careers: kids, partners, school, peri/menopause, aging parents, passion projects, neurodiversity, societal rejection, grief, depression... 

And we've realized we don’t want to fit ourselves into this broken system.

We want to build a better one.

For me, that was the spark for Sonderel. I wanted to create a structure that could hold all of this: a place where women and female-identifying consultants could lead with both strength and softness, pursue meaningful work on our own terms, and still have the backing of a team. It’s about empowerment, but also about care and empathy. About making space for all of who we are, while working together to build the world we believe in.