I sometimes joke that my career has been a journey from geopolitics to office politics. But when I look back, I can see the thread running through it all: people trying to understand one another, to build bridges, and to work together despite differences. That thread is what ultimately pulled me toward facilitation.

When I was eight years old, my family moved into a seminary housing complex in southern California, and suddenly my neighbors were from places like India, Bulgaria, Korea, and Madagascar. It sparked in me a deep curiosity about the world and a desire to understand people across cultures. I studied French, met my husband while studying abroad in Bordeaux, and taught English at a French elementary school after my undergraduate degree. That love of cross-cultural understanding, combined with an interest in negotiation inspired by the book Getting to Yes, took me all the way through a dual master’s program in International Affairs at Sciences Po in Paris and Columbia University in New York. My compass was always set toward doing good in the world, and I started seeing my contribution in terms of helping people connect across divides.

After graduating, I got a job at the philanthropic foundation Carnegie Corporation of New York, where I worked in the international peace and security program and was steeped in grantmaking that supported dialogue and bridge-building. I was fascinated by grantee convenings that brought adversaries or skeptics into a room and created enough trust for them to imagine a shared path forward. At the time, I didn’t call it facilitation. I called it conflict management. But the seed was there.

The first time I encountered a professional facilitator by title was in an internal meeting in 2022 at Carnegie. We had invited Christa White to facilitate a conversation around how we could think more intentionally about our organizational culture. Watching her work was eye-opening. The way she structured the discussion, the way she held space for vulnerability and presence—it shifted the dynamic completely. It wasn’t just us talking at each other. There was flow, coherence, and clarity. And I thought: I want to learn how to do that.

Around the same time, I was also making a career transition from program analyst to learning and development specialist—the first such role at Carnegie. My chief HR officer encouraged me to step into it, and as I learned more about what people in L&D roles actually do, I realized I had found a path that could bring together the things I loved most about my international affairs work and apply them much closer to home. Designing learning experiences, supporting professional growth, and helping colleagues connect across differences felt like the right fit. And facilitation has been at the center of it.

Learning From My Mistakes

One of the moments that most shaped my curiosity about facilitation actually came from a failure. In May 2020, only a few months into the turmoil of COVID, I co-designed a virtual communications workshop for my own department. It was one of the first workshops I got to design by myself, and I made the rookie mistake of not securing alignment with the rest of the team beforehand. I didn’t clarify the purpose with participants, including senior staff, and when the session began, people immediately started asking: why are we doing this? I froze. I had prepared meticulously, but I wasn’t nimble in the moment. I didn’t know how to respond constructively to the resistance in the room.

That experience stuck with me. It taught me that facilitation isn’t just about designing a good workshop; it’s about having presence, agility, and confidence when things don’t go as planned. Later, when I read Magical Meetings, the metaphor of the facilitator as a Jedi resonated deeply. That’s what I had been missing in 2020—the grace, responsiveness, and calm authority to guide a group even through the unexpected. From then on, I was determined to build those skills.

After moving into the new L&D role in the fall of 2022, I took foundational ATD courses on instructional design and coaching, which built my knowledge base on effective structures for learning and engaging colleagues deeply around challenges they were facing. Facilitation still felt like the missing piece – a skillset that could address what I kept hearing in staff conversations: that we wanted stronger relationships, better communication, and more productive collaboration.

Choosing Voltage Control

When I decided I wanted formal facilitation training, I assumed I’d find something in person in New York. But to my surprise, there wasn’t much. That’s when I discovered Voltage Control. What drew me in wasn’t just the certification itself, but the ecosystem around it—the community hub, the Practice Playgrounds, and the Summit. It wasn’t going to be a one-and-done course; it was going to be a living practice.

To test the waters, I joined an online Practice Playground. I wanted to get a taste of who these people were and how they worked. Right away, I saw a group of practitioners who were willing to experiment, to try things, and to share generously. That gave me the confidence to sign up for certification, even though it was virtual. The promise of live interaction, a diverse cohort, and an ongoing community made it feel right.

Building My Presence

In the certification itself, I had two major breakthroughs. The first was the diamond of participation from The Facilitator’s Guide to Participatory Decision Making. Understanding the dynamics of divergence, the groan zone, and convergence was like turning on a lightbulb. Suddenly, what I had been experiencing in group settings made sense. Discomfort wasn’t failure—it was part of the process. And with the right structures, I could help groups move through it.

The second was the shift from techniques to presence. I came into the program still focused on tools: which activities, which exercises, which Liberating Structures. And those were valuable. But the deeper lesson was about me: who am I as a facilitator? What is my purpose? How do I show up? With guidance from my instructors and inspiration from my peers, I began to see that my strength lay in creating dialogue—helping people have the conversations they wouldn’t otherwise have. Once I embraced that, my confidence grew. I didn’t need to have all the answers; I needed to create the space.

The learning partners were another unexpected highlight. With Brian Buck, I went deep into identity and purpose. Debbie Baker introduced me to visual facilitation. And Robin Neidorf gave me the encouragement I needed to finish my portfolio. These relationships made the experience richer, and meeting them in person at the 2025 Facilitation Lab Summit was a joy. Walking into that room and already knowing I belonged to this special community made it one of the most rewarding professional experiences of my life.

Bringing Facilitation Home

After certification, I had the chance to facilitate a full-day strategy and process-improvement retreat for my old grantmaking team. In the past, our retreats had been loosely structured and not always as productive as we wanted them to be, with some voices tending to dominate while others held back. This time, I applied everything I had learned. I interviewed participants in advance and co-created the agenda. I clarified outcomes and roles, including careful intentionality around when and how the group would make decisions. I designed a flow that balanced purpose and process.

The retreat was a success. Participants told me it was the best retreat they’d ever had—productive, engaging, and relationship-building. For me, it was validation that the skills I had invested in were real, practical, and could help groups move forward even in complex contexts. 

Alongside this, I began applying facilitation not just to team retreats, but also to organization-wide capacity-building. For example, I’ve had the chance to roll out Crucial Conversations training as a certified internal trainer. Because the course already comes with such strong content and structure, it gave me the freedom to focus on my presence in the room. The topic itself makes facilitation especially meaningful: creating a space where colleagues can explore the difficult conversations we often avoid, even though they shape so much of our work. I’ve come to see that the work of dialogue—whether in international affairs or collaborating with coworkers—always starts with yourself. The same is true of facilitation: I had to focus on my own presence and mindset in order to create the conditions for others to open up. The feedback I’ve received has been deeply affirming, with participants highlighting my openness, a nonjudgmental approach, active listening, thoughtful responses, and a warm, clear style. I truly love this work because it feels like an opportunity to practice the kind of dialogue that strengthens both people and organizations.

Leading in Community

One of the unexpected rewards of the program has been not just learning facilitation practice, but leading it. After my initial disappointment that there wasn’t a Practice Playground in New York, it was incredibly rewarding to help launch one as the regional lead for Facilitation Lab NYC. Month after month, I get to challenge myself, experiment, and build community with others who are curious about facilitation. The mix of alumni, newcomers, and curious professionals makes for a dynamic group, and I always leave energized and grateful.

The community aspect is, to me, one of the most powerful parts of Voltage Control. Facilitation can feel like an individual skill, but it’s really a collective practice. Getting to learn, stumble, reflect, and grow alongside others has made me not just a better facilitator but a better colleague and leader.

Looking Ahead

Right now, in addition to my L&D work, I’m also supporting a new initiative at Carnegie focused on reimagining the system of national service in America as a way to counter the forces of political polarization. We’re working with longtime leader in the field Alan Khazei, co-founder of City Year, to explore how service can provide more opportunities for young people and strengthen the civic fabric. As part of this, we hosted a major summit in early October with leaders across government, education, business, philanthropy, the military, faith communities, and the nonprofit and service sectors. My facilitation training has been and will continue to be directly relevant as we’ve thought through designing a purposeful gathering, creating trust, and ensuring a range of voices and perspectives are heard as we build toward a shared vision.

Long term, I plan to continue blending facilitation with my passion for dialogue and bridge-building. Whether it’s international relations, civic health, or organizational culture, I’ve learned that the work is based on the same core principles: creating spaces where people can listen, connect, and collaborate across differences. That’s the work I want to keep doing.

If you’re considering the certification, my advice is simple: do it. Whether you’re brand new or twenty years into your practice, you’ll gain skills, perspective, and community. And if you’re not quite ready, try a Practice Playground or come to the Facilitation Summit. Those experiences give you a taste of what’s possible—and you might just find yourself, as I did, saying: this is exactly what I’ve been looking for.

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