I founded the OQ framework — Organizational Quotient — because I kept seeing what others couldn't name. OQ is the ability to navigate the unspoken rules, power structures, and decision dynamics of corporate life. Where EQ helps you understand emotions, OQ is about understanding the organization itself: who actually has influence, where decisions were really made, which "let's circle back" meant no. In any meeting, I can tell you which moves are load-bearing and which are theater.

The QPH series I write is about people whose value lives in the space between job descriptions. I am one of them. I've been called "the mayor" at a former company. I've been the "ghost boss" — advocating for cross-functional colleagues in rooms they're not in. I emceed a global town hall in a festive holiday hat and got messages afterward that weren't about the content — they were about how it felt to be in the room. Energy is a deliverable. It's what people remember when the game is over.

I am, by temperament, direct. My reviews have their own vocabulary for it. But I learned that bluntness without craft just gets you labeled difficult. The craft buys the candor. I pay for directness through setup: the pre-wiring, the channel choice, the friend I made six months ago so this conversation goes well today. I design communication architectures — sequencing up first, then team, then stakeholders. And when the room needs it, I throw the truth grenade. I'm the one who says the thing that moves everyone forward.

When three colleagues left in six months during COVID — while I'd just started a new job and was pregnant with my second child — I didn't spiral. I found paths around, through, under, and over the problems. Got promoted while on maternity leave. I run on the MacGyver principle: any problem can be solved with a little ingenuity. I've also spent years unlearning the early-career instinct to equate busyness with value. The processing engine isn't just about handling chaos — it's about knowing which chaos is worth handling.

I built AI strategy at News Corp when most organizations were still debating whether AI was real. Cultivated relationships with Google and OpenAI before those relationships were fashionable. Now at Wipro, I'm designing the human-AI handoff architecture for a global consulting practice. The same dual-channel reading that lets me navigate organizational politics is what makes me good at this: I understand what humans are actually doing when they make decisions — so I know precisely where AI fits and where it doesn't.