Projects
Projects
Cariño Botánica
The constraint
My sister and I wanted to bring zero-waste, refill-based shopping to the Inland Empire, a region with almost no accessible options for it. We started with a folding table at a market in Downtown Pomona and no capital beyond what we'd saved.
What I did
I owned vendor sourcing and product research, ran day-to-day operations, kept the books, built and maintained our website, ran events, and handled customer service. Most of it I learned by getting it wrong the first time.
The outcome
We grew from that folding table into a refillery serving the Inland Empire for four years before we closed the business in 2025.
Running Cariño taught me that a good mission still needs a business model under it.
Claremont Sustainability Consulting
The role
I joined CSC, a ~20-person student consulting group across the 5Cs, as a consultant in fall 2025, working with Bright Action on making their climate platform more social and actionable. That spring I led a two-person team advising Didómi on their pitch to expand onto college campuses. Now I'm Co-Managing Director, restructuring our mission, values, and principles, running the club, recruiting, and supervising engagement teams. I'm the primary MD on campus this fall while my two co-MDs are abroad, then I take my turn in the spring.
What it's taught me
Client work is different from running my own business. I don't get to define the problem alone, and now I'm usually the one deciding how to split the work and figuring out where each person on the team is actually strongest. I've had to get better at scoping a problem, assigning it out, and making sure what comes back is useful to the client and genuinely our best work, not just thorough.