Hi, I'm Alex, and I want to work with you.
But first, you need to get to know me. And you can't know me without knowing her.
My ma was a single parent, meaning that growing up I spent a lot of time with the best woman in the world, Ruth Y. Wilson, my grandmother. Ruth had a passion for learning which translated in igniting that curiosity in others: it made perfect sense she was a teacher for thirty-eight-and-a-half years. Ruth made learning exciting while turning boring English texts into collections of magical words and old hymnals into sweet symphonies. Her perspective on life was to always look deeper, handle things calmly, and knowing that no conversation is complete without a good story. Ruth is so much of the reason why I am the way I am, and I think she'd be pretty proud.
I majored in American Studies, race and ethnicity concentration, at the University of Virginia, and earned a Master's in Creative Brand Management from VCU Brandcenter. I have so much knowledge about Richmond, VA I could write a whole damn brochure. My entire life is about passion, and creating spaces where people feel included while communicating what those spaces are so the right people can find them. And I do it all while getting eight hours of sleep, nightly.
So what can I do? What work is behind snazzy copy and sentimental design?
Communications, at its core, is information sharing. When organizations work in silos, that sharing gets weaker, and it's harder to do this job well with less of the picture than you need. So I won't apologize for wanting the whole picture. I don't need to run every department to understand what's happening in it, I just need enough fluency to talk with the experts, understand their judgment calls, and connect the dots they can't always see from inside their own silo. Communications is my expertise. Understanding the whole organization is what makes that expertise actually work.
My personal, lived experiences have been the basis of my professional passions.
I'm Black, gay, fat, a woman, neurodivergent. That's lived experience, not a disclaimer, and it's the reason I became a DEI practitioner in the first place: I know what it feels like to not be fully seen, and I've built real skill out of making sure other people are. I care whether my team is doing okay, not because work is a social hangout, but because a team that's solid works better together, and that makes the communication stronger and the work better. We bring our whole selves to work whether organizations want us to or not. I bring care and consideration to my colleagues because I believe that makes the work better, and that's the kind of worker I am.
