Editorial Director turned Investor based in New York. Currently Partner at The Helm, a venture capital firm investing in game-changing female founders.
About
I am a New Zealand-born writer, editor, and content strategist turned venture capital investor based in New York. My expertise lies in conversation-starting storytelling through long-form features, ambitious packages, podcasts, video, newsletters, and social that not only contribute to the daily cultural conversation but break through the digital noise. Most recently, I was the Features Director at Harper's BAZAAR, where I led strategy and programming for large-scale digital projects to elevate the brand’s content mix across digital and print platforms, with an urgent and thoughtful approach toward issues shaping our world today. As a Partner at The Helm, I source and diligence deals with a focus on game-changing women’s healthcare and climate & sustainability solutions. I also lead The Helm’s angel investor network, managing all platform, digital, editorial, events, and communications-related activities for our founders and our wider community.
I sit on both the Environmental Conversation Commission and the Investment and Preservation Commission of Marbletown, New York. I am also the founder of Olivia Kane, a sustainable fine jewelry line launched in 2015.
Editing / Writing
At Harper’s BAZAAR, I brought the term emotional labor into the mainstream lexicon, assigning and editing stories on invisible work, emotional gold-digging, and gender roles in same-sex relationships. I pushed the envelope in our coverage of women’s issues, particularly those relating to motherhood and sex, which have long been shrouded in secrecy and shame. Features on masturbation workshops, pumping in the workplace, the female filmmakers reinventing adult cinema, vaginal tearing, the emotional toll of c-sections, fertility testing for young women, the link between kinky sex and career success, and the rise of picture-perfect motherhood started national conversations, with the likes of Chelsea Clinton and Melinda Gates joining in on Twitter.
I created packages around periods and clean beauty, brought print’s “Daring” Issue to life online (twice), created Harper’s BAZAAR’s first podcast, and assigned and edited ASME-nominated features like Why Does It Feel Like Everyone Has More Money Than You?, Is America Ready for the SoulCycle of Sex?, Is Teenage Plastic Surgery a Feminist Act?, and How to Make Abortion Great Again.
I published viral political features from the likes of Parkland student Emma Gonzalez and civil rights activist Rachel Cargle, which expanded the reach and mission of the brand’s core audience. I enlisted opinion writers to offer nuanced coverage of timely topics like Abortion Is Not Murder and Men Are Responsible for Mass Shootings, and edited widely shared essays such as How Forgiveness Has Been Weaponized Against Women and Sometimes You Make Your Rapist Breakfast.
But it wasn’t all serious. Celebrity coups were a signature. I interviewed digital cover stars like Irina Shayk, Khloe Kardashian, Paris Hilton, Bella Thorne, and the cast of Booksmart. I assigned and edited cover profiles on the Jonas Brothers, Jenna Dewan, the Smiths, Ciara, and Chrissy Metz. I tried on 80 wedding dresses, traveled to Morocco, Vieques, the Bahamas, and Monte Carlo, followed the fashionable lives of New York’s Power Moms, and popularized the term Nodels.
My writing has appeared in T Magazine, Conde Nast Traveller, Vogue.com, Elle.com, Interview Magazine, The New York Observer, The New York Post, and more. See below.
02
03
05