Build with AI

I'm an AI & Automation addict!

Welcome to my profile! I’m the Head of GMs at Leland and a former consultant at Boston Consulting Group. I work on growth and operations and spend much of my time building automation that removes manual work from our team’s day-to-day processes. At Leland, I built an AI-powered email pipeline that fully manages inbound messages. The system classifies emails, drafts replies, and routes them to the right teammates through Slack. I’ve also helped design automated sales workflows that support lead qualification and customer communication for our bootcamp business. My perspective comes from building these systems as a non-technical operator. If you’re a founder or business professional who wants to start using tools like Claude and workflow automation platforms to reduce manual work, I’d be happy to share what I’ve learned.

I was a recent teaching assistant and curriculum writer for Leland's AI Builder Program, which has over 500 reviews from people who used it to stop feeling behind on AI. I work with professionals one-on-one and in cohorts, helping them turn their own daily business operations into automated, AI-powered systems: vibe coding, personal portfolios, organizational workflows, data analytics pipelines, agentic automation layers, and cloud-hosted orchestration agents, all tailored to their industry and how they actually work. My approach comes from an information systems background at BYU's Marriott School of Business, with hands-on experience across frontend, backend, data storage, and hosting. That range means I can meet people wherever they're starting, whether they've never written a line of code or they're technical and want to layer AI into an existing workflow, and help them walk away with something real and running.

Seasoned strategy consultant and AI coach with over a decade of experience leading operational and systems transformations across U.S. government agencies, startups, and nonprofits. As a Wharton MBA and former international partnerships lead, I’ve spent my career helping teams work smarter by building better systems and processes. I’ve taught dozens of professionals how to integrate AI into their daily work, saving hours each week, improving communication, and creating measurable impact. My coaching blends strategy, structure, and hands-on learning to make AI practical, approachable, and directly tied to career growth.

I help people and teams build with AI — from first prototype to production. I've spent a decade building AI at companies like Amazon, Uber, and a Y Combinator startup I co-founded as CTO. My edge: I don't just use AI tools, I train the models underneath them — LLMs, text-to-video, voice — so I can teach you how these systems actually work, not just which buttons to press. Some things I've built: AI voice agents that automated thousands of business phone calls per month (taken from an empty repo to paying enterprise customers), the post-training behind user-facing video-generation features like Pikaffects, and today, the reinforcement learning behind code-generation models — the kind that power tools like Claude Code, Cursor, and Copilot. Here's what we can do together: build LLM apps, chatbots, AI agents, and RAG pipelines; set up AI automations and workflow automation that remove manual work; master prompt engineering and get real leverage from ChatGPT, Claude, and agent coding tools like Claude Code and Cursor; go deeper with fine-tuning and open-source models (Hugging Face) when off-the-shelf isn't enough; and pressure-test your stack and architecture before mistakes get expensive. And because I teach from the model up, what you learn stays useful as the tools and models keep changing. Whether you're a founder building an AI startup, an engineer adding AI to your product, or a non-technical builder starting from no-code tools — tell me what you want to build, and let's ship it.

I'm a first adopter of AI tools. I'm an investor and a startup founder with exclusive access to some of the earliest builders in the space. And I have a really bad sleeping habit and addiction to Twitter. All of that means that when you have a conversation with me about AI, I guarantee that we will bring you to an understanding at a foundational level about whatever you're trying to achieve and bring you to an advanced mastery that will last moving forward. Whether you want to... get better use out of chat applications, understand how to use agent tooling like Claude Code or Codex CLI, build your own agents with a framework like Mastra, understand whether a product like OpenClaw is just hype... or if you want to dig into your specific workflows, either in your personal life or for professional productivity, we can cover it all. Whenever I coach or teach about AI, I talk about all of our strategies and tactics being both portable and durable. Portable in that they don't require being tied down to any given tool but work as the tools change, and durable in that they're strategies and understanding that will last as models update and products evolve.

I help people understand, build, and use AI in practical ways. Whether you’re building an AI product, improving your workflow, exploring automation, preparing for AI/data roles, or figuring out how AI applies to your business, I can help you turn broad ideas into clear next steps. I’ve worked on technology across very different environments: the Olympic Games, startups, and AI implementations for real businesses. I’ve scoped projects, built tools, designed workflows, evaluated business cases, worked with technical infrastructure, and used AI hands-on across products, data, automation, LLMs, prompts, agents, and operations. My goal is to make AI feel less overwhelming and more useful. I’ll meet you where you are and help you move forward with more clarity, confidence, and practical judgment.

I learned to code more than a decade ago and spent most of my career in analytics. Over the last two years, my work has shifted toward AI transformation and hands-on development. I now help organizations and small businesses figure out where AI could be useful, then build the tools to prove it. I have built my own software, automations, and agents using tools like Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, Lovable, n8n, Devin, and Amp. My recent work includes a recruiting system that finds, reviews, publishes, and tracks jobs; a direct-booking and turnover system for a short-term-rental business; and agents that handle recurring work while sending higher-stakes decisions to a person. I am also a solutions partner for Lovable, Lindy AI, and Emergent. You do not need a technical background or a perfectly formed idea. Bring me a problem, an annoying part of your work, or something you wish existed. We will figure out what is worth building and make it together. You will leave with something you can use and a much clearer understanding of how it works.

Welcome to my profile! With extensive experience in talent acquisition and a deep understanding of AI and machine learning, I am well-equipped to guide you through the complexities of building with AI. My background includes roles at top companies like a16z, Meta, Intuit, and Zoom, where I specialized in recruiting and developing AI talent. As the Principal at Hollestelle Holdings, I have partnered with industry leaders such as Allstate, Cisco, and RingCentral to create tailored growth strategies. I am currently pursuing a Master's degree in coaching to further enhance my ability to support your journey. Let's connect and explore how I can help you achieve your AI ambitions!

My journey being in the deep end of the AI industry (in Silicon Valley), through Stanford courses, and real-world experience, testing, and tooling has equipped me with the materials to help you enhance productivity through AI tools! I am passionate about helping clients harness the power of AI to streamline their workflows and achieve their professional goals.