Howdy, I’m Willa!

I’m a native Californian currently completing my Master’s in Creative Direction, Content and Branding in Madrid, Spain.

With years of experience working in the food and restaurant industry, I know how to roll my sleeves up, work in fast paced environments and get whatever job needs to be done, done. I’m a natural leader on a team, have excellent people skills, can manage tight time frames and love checking things off the list. Whether you’re looking for a team cheerleader, project manager, or someone to plan a party - I can do it all.

To give you a little context about me: I grew up in Healdsburg a small town that was a destination for wine tourism. My community was built around food, craft, wine and nature, and my upbringing heavily impacted my interests, and led me to a number of non-traditional work opportunities.

I received a Bachelor’s degree in Food Systems, a transdisciplinary program focused on building healthy, sustainable and smarter food systems. Through various internships I got hands on experience working on farms, participating in food security initiatives, and worked in a professional kitchen specializing in sustainable cooking in Rome (I love pasta and would love to nerd out with you about any shape, restaurant or recipe).

After graduating, I moved to Durham, North Carolina where I worked as an Events & Office Manager at a James Beard Award winning restaurant, Lantern. I was involved in most aspects of the business: from events, to daily service, running expo in the kitchen for busy weekends/holidays, restaurant renovations, managing social media and marketing, making in-house candles, gardening, starting a small food business pop-up market, and putting out nearly every fire imaginable. I gained invaluable communication skills working with clients, planned and coordinated memorable events and was able to work on super interesting side projects. My knack for checking things off the list only got better, and being the middle man between FOH and BOH was perfect for me.

After Lantern, I joined a small but mighty team at Piedmont Wine Imports, an organic European food and wine importer. I worked as an account manager for some restaurant and wine shops, built out the food portfolio (bringing in tinned fish and line-caught Sardinian tuna!!) and played an integral part in daily operations. I loved this team and I loved the job and was inspired by my boss’ ability to build his brand around authentic and humorous storytelling, which led me to taking a massive leap of faith to go to grad-school (never ever thought I’d do that!) in Spain.

I’m now finishing up my Master’s which has taught me all about finding insights, telling a good story, writing pitch decks, and has given me the hands on skills to work on any kind of creative project. I have had the opportunity to work on extremely diverse teams with a wide range of experience, skills and backgrounds. While I thought I would become a designer at the end of this program, I’ve found that what I really enjoy and am very good at, is managing teams. Working with creative individuals and being able to figure out how to execute their vision is exactly what I excel at.

In my free time, I have about 10 different craft projects in various stages, enjoy finding the best french fries, proudly defending walnuts needing to be in chocolate chip cookies, doing any activity outside and spending every minute I can with my dog, Rudi.