Jennifer Ching

COVID-19 changed my life. Like many other folks, I lost my job in 2020. After a successful, 14-year career in corporate marketing, I had to re-invent myself. It was scary, transformative, and quite frankly, the best thing that ever happened to me.

I had worked my way up from being a Creative Assistant supporting a team of graphic designers and my leaders, to being the Senior Creative Operations Manager where I managed a team of project managers and operational professionals. So, I knew A LOT about the graphic design process and what makes creative people tick.

I found my happy spot as Senior Manager of Systems & Tools — a fancy way to say I oversaw technology tools as a system admin and business systems analyst, and the processes that go along with them—and then poof.

I was a full-time, stay at home mom to three corgis, feeling super worthless and suffering from “now what?” syndrome.

So, what’s a girl to do?

After lots of therapy, self-discovery, and attempting to sell life insurance (which I did, poorly), I decided I needed to get back to what I love. Technology, operations, and helping people.

Everywhere I had worked, I saw layer upon layers of legacy process and procedure, legacy tools connected with duct tape and band-aids to “just make it work for now.” I heard (and continue to hear) the same stories from my peers and employees about how disorganized and dysfunctional their experiences had been at their previous jobs.

It sounded like everyone I knew and talked to was dealing with the same flavor of frustration as I had been, and I really didn’t want to go back to that. If you don’t have the time to do it “right” or optimally the first time, when the heck are you going to have the time to go back and fix it? When it breaks and your business suffers or stops completely?

I wanted more than just working for a big company, reporting to bosses who were driving a bigger, looming agenda I didn’t connect with. I wanted to care about what I was doing and who I did it for.

I wanted to be able to see the impact of my efforts and feel good about the people I was helping. Heck, I just wanted to help people who actually appreciated my help and valued my skills.

I wanted to put my deep knowledge of marketing, design and writing to work, and I wanted to sink my teeth into learning new tools and technology again. Because I’m nerdy like that.

I wanted to make a difference by helping people who are less-than-tech-savvy get things done efficiently, in an optimal and organized manner. Because let’s face it– those with big idea brains are not often amazing at execution, maintenance, and upkeep–and those of us who are precision executors often don’t have the big ideas to execute.

I was born and raised at the edge of the rainforest in Haiku, Hawaii on the island of Maui. My mom was a self-employed bookkeeper and I watched her launch her own business and make a living being her own boss. She was (and is!) and inspiration to me. Because of her, I learned to think creatively and problem-solve. I attribute my workhorse, work ethic to watching her determination and insistence on never giving up.

My mom always told me to leave things better than I found them. This is how I approach my business today. I want to leave YOU in a better state than when we found each other. No matter if it’s a tiny project or a huge digital file organization effort, let’s get it done and get it done optimally the first time.

Writing, design, and all things creative are passions of mine and I consider my education ongoing, though I have a BA in Radio, Television and Communications. In my spare time I take as many courses as I can to improve my knowledge, and love to bake, draw and paint, and work in my garden. I’m based in Concord, CA where I live with my husband of 20 years and our 3 dogs Momiji, Musubi and Tanuki.