I'm publishing my first book

I'm publishing Agunamakuash: When Crises Call for Redefining Courageous Leadership - a book written from 14 years leading in war zones, refugee camps, and humanitarian crises.

Most leadership books are written by people who've led comfortable teams in air-conditioned offices.
This one was written in Angola, Sudan, Chad, Darfur, Colombia, India, Peru, and Indonesia - in war zones, refugee camps, and epidemic outbreaks.
For fourteen years, I worked in humanitarian crises where everything was falling apart. Where "caring for your team" wasn't corporate culture - it was the only thing that kept people alive and functional. Where the leadership frameworks from business school would collapse within days.
I learned what actually works when nothing else does.
 

The Book Nobody Asked Me to Write

I started writing this for my kids. A legacy document. Stories from those fourteen years, so they'd understand what their parents did before they were born.

I wrote 140,000 words - everything I could remember, every detail that mattered to me. Then I sent it to professional editors to make it readable.

They came back with something I didn't expect: "This isn't just a family memoir. Cut this to 70,000 words and publish it."

So I did. I cut everything that served my memory instead of the story. I focused on what those years actually taught me about leadership - the kind you can't learn in a workshop.

At the end of 2025 and in April 2026, I ran fundraiser campaigns to pay for professional editing and publishing.  I raised the money each time in three weeks from people who wanted to read this.

That told me something: there's demand for leadership lessons from reality, not theory.

Why Current Leadership Is Failing

A lot of leadership today is moving toward authoritarian control, performance obsession, and hard edges.

The "gentle, courageous, creative" leadership I'm describing isn't trendy. It doesn't fit the narrative of the super-performing CEO or the tough-minded executive.

But here's what I learned across fourteen years in the worst situations humans create:

When everything's falling apart - war, epidemic, crisis - the hard-edge approach collapses. Caring for people isn't soft. It's what actually works when it matters.

Leaders often avoid it. Not because of consequences, but because of limiting beliefs. Because it takes them out of known territory.

My entire leadership philosophy is framed by one idea: "Nobody cares how much you know until they know how much you care."

I didn't plan this strategically. It was natural to me. But I've seen its power in the most challenging environments - even confronted with massive egos, hidden agendas, and people who didn't want to be led.

Book's launch in September 2026