Why Tomaato Club?

I've felt stuck for a while now.

Not anymore. I'm starting a new chapter, and for the first time in a while, I feel aligned, not just with what I'm building, but where I am headed.

This change started nine years ago, with the arrival of my first born, Mila. She arrived and it felt like my heart was living outside of my body. It was hers. She was mine. There's a word for this shift: matrescence, the birth of a mother alongside the birth of a child. Nobody warns you it's happening. You just wake up one day as someone new, still finding your feet as you navigate being a mother and all the change that comes it.

I felt like I had been cracked open. Every decision felt bigger. Prior to becoming a mum, a large part of my identity was tied to my career. I had been climbing, and building and was ten years deep in sales and marketing, but soon realized this was not the place I was meant to be. My ladder was up the wrong wall, so to speak. I was good at it. I just wasn't in love with it. And if you know me, you know I run on passion. Sales is connection. Marketing is creative connection. I enjoyed both, but I needed to actually feel something while I did it.

So, I went looking. Allowing myself to be led by curiosity.

I taught myself the ukulele. Then taught art and music to sweet preschoolers in a Reggio style early learning centre – I loved the work but could never see myself growing with it long term.  

I built a children's clothing line with my mother-in-law, Jenn. Her hands, my creative direction. We co-designed everything. I ran creative, logistics, brand. She sewed the garments into being. It was joyful, right up until we tried to scale with outside sewers and ran into problems. A tale as old as time, I know. We ended up closing the business. But I walked away with so much, I found my love for brand and story, and I began developing my taste – diving deeper into my love for art, design and fashion. I learnt that I need to create – there is so much creative expression involved in birthing a thing I actually wanted to see exist in the world.

From there, I kept following the thread towards story and brand. I took a brand strategist role at a web agency, followed by a project director role at a brand strategy firm. I learnt a lot about the business and about myself, what I loved and didn’t. Both roles taught me something I couldn't have learned any other way: I love working with other creatives. Collaborating with designers and writers, building the clear path a brand needs to actually become what it's meant to be.

Here's where I’ve currently landed, I love brands that stand for something, asking why they exist, what they're trying to change. And I love artists: writers, photographers, designers, anyone building their distinct voice. Because when an artist's craft lines up with their passion, something beautiful happens. Like Magic. I saw flashes of it in my agency work. Just never enough of it.

I kept working alongside talented people, with a real feel for story, who could see exactly where a brand should go, only to watch them get boxed in. Not enough freedom. And the work suffered for it. I started asking myself: what if there were a different way, a process that respected the voice and vision of the artist?  

With the rise of AI-generated content, brands are starting to sound the same. People can feel the difference, even when they can't name it. They're craving the human voice back: the imperfect, the handmade, the real.

This is why I started Tomaato Club. Because we need more art, more strong voices, more beautiful writing. We’re here to help brands find their human voice, and use it to connect.

So, stay tuned. I'm just getting started, working with the awesome people building brands they believe in, alongside a team of passionate artists ready to share their story.