My Journey from a Corporate Career in IT to Starting My Own Interior Design Business with No “Experience”

A year ago today, the company I had worked for since graduating college notified nearly 900 people they were being laid off. Each of us received one of three meeting invites first thing in the morning. Three months prior, we had been told layoffs were coming. I wasn’t fazed. I had been preparing for it.

I always had big dreams. In high school, I wanted to be a fashion designer. My classmates can attest to that. I was creative, bold, and unapologetically authentic, often wearing things others weren’t, even through my emo phase 😆 I took sewing classes and made several pieces for myself, including my prom dress, with the help of my much older classmates. Then I moved to America at 19 years old with big dreams and not a clue what I was doing, hoping I’d make it to PRATT to pursue my dream. Sadly (or thankfully) I never made it out of Sarasota, where I landed with my aunt and uncle. Once I started college, I quickly realized fashion school was going to be much harder than expected without a support system or money. A business degree sounded smart, so Marketing it was. I told myself it would be creative enough. Let’s just say marketing is now my least favorite part of being a business owner.

While putting myself through college waiting tables (a job I believe every young person should experience, by the way) I eventually landed work at a small e-commerce business, where I taught myself Photoshop, digital marketing, and wore just about every hat imaginable.

I remember getting the call. I was offered a six-month contract position with HSN, back then a Fortune 500 company. Leaving a permanent role for a contract was a risk I will never regret taking. Out of six contractors hired for HSN’s massive website redesign in 2013, I was the only one offered a full-time position. Even writing this makes me emotional. A girl from Colombia, no family around, putting herself through college waiting tables, accent and all, getting the opportunity of a lifetime. What got me that job was hunger, passion, and a willingness to try new things. I have always loved solving problems, understanding people’s needs, and making a real difference.

Life at HSN was something special. The people became more like family, the projects were big and exhilarating, the corporate politics kept you on your toes, but the future always felt bright, living up to the slogan: *It’s Fun Here*. Those of us who lived through it will never forget. We are forever connected by how it transformed us.

That taste of it and I was ready to commit my entire career to Product Management. I became obsessed with analyzing people’s behavior to improve experiences across digital platforms. I was so passionate about it that I enrolled in a remote Master’s program in User Experience Design. Around that time, my then-husband took a job in North Carolina, which led me to a role at Lowe’s corporate headquarters. I never truly felt like I belonged there. HSN had felt like home, and Lowe’s simply wasn’t that. Working for a Fortune 100 company was a valuable experience, but it confirmed just how exceptional HSN had been. We were actually getting things done and the work felt meaningful.

Lowe’s was short-lived. My marriage was falling apart, we moved back to Florida, and lucky for me, my previous role was still there. My now-husband had actually taken my position, but that’s a story for another time. Back at HSN, I felt like I was home again. Things had shifted slightly, but I returned at the right moment to lead the implementation of a new search engine, which had become my area of expertise. Not even a year later, we were acquired by our main competitor, QVC. And as with most mergers, things very slowly started to unravel.

This was the career I had planned to retire from. I loved corporate life. I never had any desire to own a business, and I would have been perfectly content in Product Management forever. I loved building relationships across departments, creating systems and processes that simplified people’s work, driving efficiencies, and making a meaningful impact. I advocated fiercely for others. I was passionate about innovation and problem-solving. But slowly, I began to feel like I was making less of a difference. My voice was getting buried under layers of corporate politics. Leadership changes created distance between my role and actual decision-makers. I was being assigned to projects that would later get deprioritized, bounced from product to product without ever seeing anything through to completion. It was demoralizing. I was far too driven to let myself settle into indifference.

And that is when God did what only God can do. He put an itch in my heart.

By this point in my life, I had gone through a divorce, remarried, and had three children. I had purchased four homes, three of which we built from the ground up. I *loved* that process. Finishing and decorating our homes, and often my friends’ homes, had always been my hobby. It never once occurred to me that I could change careers in my late thirties, especially into something I assumed required a formal degree. And yet I found myself following more and more interior designers on Instagram, successful ones who had done exactly that.

I was going through major transitions in my friendships, work had lost its spark, and I needed a creative outlet. So I started taking on small projects on the side while still working in corporate. Slowly, I began to see a future. And naturally, I started building systems and processes, because that to me is the backbone of a solid business.

About four months into that journey came the layoff announcement.

I cannot fully describe the emotions I felt. Sadness for what felt like the end of something that had shaped my life. Excitement for what this could mean for my new venture. And an overwhelming sense of humility at God’s love and protection over my life. He was not surprised by any of this. In fact, He had already been moving me toward this dream at exactly the right time.

From announcement to actual layoffs, we had three months. We were told in January that cuts would come by the end of March. Exactly one year ago, on March 27th, 2025, I received a call from my manager. As it turned out, I had missed the meeting invite where our CTO had addressed hundreds of us at once to let us know we were no longer with the company.

It feels like a lifetime ago. I have since worked with wonderful clients on dreamy projects, met incredible people, and lived moments I will never forget. And the best is still yet to come.

Above all, all glory to God, who has never left me nor forsaken me, rewarding humility and obedience with goodness and faithfulness. That is the God I serve. My CEO.