Hi! I’m Leigh. I’m glad you’re here!
It’s actually taken me a long time to get here – where I am today professionally – and my goal is to make that journey easier for you.
I’m an experienced project manager who’s enthusiastic about making things happen, collaborating and working with teams to execute on a shared goal. But as much as I love my career, I didn’t always know what I wanted to do professionally. It was a bit of a journey to get here.
During college, it took me a while to determine my major. I got an undergraduate degree in Political Science. (Not sure what I was thinking there.) Since I still didn’t know what I wanted to be when I grew up, I went on to graduate school and got a Master’s Degree in Sociology. I worked an entry-level position, traveled India and Nepal for a few months trekking the Himalayas, working with Mother Teresa, and exploring. I went to Chile with the Peace Corps. When I came back to the states, I stumbled into a project coordinator position. I didn’t realize that project management was an actual career path, but I discovered that I really loved it, and was thrilled that there was a career progression for it.
I married my software developer husband during that time. He was my biggest supporter and gave me the confidence to make the move to IT, though I had ZERO technical experience.
You can read more about how I got into IT project management in my post HERE.
I found that I especially loved project management in software development, and have worked in that area since.
I moved into a management position for several years, managing a Project 
Management Office (PMO). I loved the team I managed, and the opportunities that came in this new role: process improvement, developing roadmaps, and aligning projects to support strategy, along with supporting my team of PMs. But I’d just had a baby, and 60-hour workweeks that were required at the time were not a good fit for our family for many years. I loved my career, yet I also wanted to be home at night for dinner and see my toddler grow. After several years in management, I moved back to project management.
I’ve continued to develop skills and experience in project management and love that there’s so much diversity in projects and always more to learn with emerging technologies, Agile framework, and larger challenges. I’ve implemented large-scale international projects and have also moved into more strategy and portfolio work. In the last year, I’ve switched to using Agile and love the mindset and philosophy. I’ve also served in the role of Release Train Engineer (RTE) for my project using Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe), and have moved into the role of product owner.
I’m also passionate about leadership and performance. I love seeing people work toward reaching their full potential. For that reason, I write about those topics also here on my blog.
I love coaching new project managers who want to “up their game”. I’ve been coaching project managers for the past few years, helping them improve confidence and skill in their project management careers. I really love helping others in this career that I’m so passionate about.
I hope that you find information here that helps you be better, grow, and shine in your career!
Let me know if you have questions – or you just want to share a career success story! I would love to hear from you!
Email me at leigh (at) espy.net – I can’t wait to hear from you!