Well, dear visitor, I am Madame X! The funny thing is that I created the fictional headmistress of a secret school for ‘clever girls’, with the fun, expressed goal of NOT telling you! Developing novel, exciting, useful engagement that delights families has always been a focus of mine; and I enjoy creating cool, unexpected touch-points for the Madame X families who participate in the program. I’ve communicated with parents and kids with coded messages; produced personalized educational ‘video drops’ and ciphers; and also developed at-home activity sheets and projects for Madame X’ers to do outside of the events - free of charge and without future enrollment expectation. I care deeply about every, single detail of my experiences and program. I’m also very proud of it and the kids, which is why I post a lot of photos!

What’s Your Background?

I’m a career marketing professional with three decades of experience that spans communications, marketing, brand strategy and design. I’ve been vice president, managing director, head of comms and senior strategist numerous times, at several well-known agencies and start-ups (including one of the very first tech PR firms in the country, which helped usher in the mass adoption of Silicon Valley technology and culture). I’ve also worked extensively as an independent communications and marketing consultant, and have enjoyed a diverse career that includes working in technology, entertainment, publishing & social impact. I’ve launched and supported countless products and companies over the course of my career; and have counseled a lot of CEOs and executive teams. I should mention in these crazy days and times, that I’m also very skilled at crisis communications. Just sayin’….

What is Your Role Within Madame X? What Do you Do?

Madame X is my baby from initial concept and brand articulation; to hands-on execution of every single role and detail. I am the organization's sole:

creative director, event producer, designer, experience namer; educational researcher, curriculum designer & writer; logo designer (both brand & per themed event), brand strategist, marketing copywriter & art designer, multi-sensory/multi-activity designer, procurement specialist, digital designer and copywriter for web, email, social media; photo & video editor, photographer (I’m one of a few), packaging and gift designer (for example: farm goods, contents and packaging of tea party gifts, concealed book safes, (including, my “in-event” creative materials: Ex. spy-themed dossier and edible,“anti-venom,” which, of course, was key to the villain’s storyline!), t-shirt, swag, tchotchke designer, venue researcher, location scout & negotiator; registrar, business manager, lead educator & entertainer; guest instructor researcher & recruiter, customer relations (families, parents + kids), volunteer wrangler.

I do not have an internal team. I do not use outside agencies. I am the agencies.

Madame X was a way of expressing my values through education, the creation of unique, elevated experiences; and my desire to develop a positive community of likeminded families. I implement the program without external funding, so my professional talents, personal financial resources and D.I.Y skills are are my super powers.

Below, are answers to some basic questions:

Why Don’t You Use Your Real Name?

I deliberately conceal my name, because it’s part of Madame X’s fictional secret backstory! I would have loved this as a kid! I formally introduce myself to all of the parents at the start of each event, but to the kids, I’m Madame X! Also, inquiring minds could always utilize this for information.

The Madame X Academy ‘origin story’ was that I originally created it as a ‘proof of concept,’ starting with my first experience, “Ain’t MisBEEhavin,’” which I hosted at a local library. As an experimental social enterprise, I initially didn’t want to promote myself, because I didn’t know if The Madame X Academy was going to be a ‘one-off’ creative endeavor or not. The Internet is forever! Also, although, I was driven to develop the organization for social good; I also created it as a personal outlet for my creativity, skills and talents. I could do everything that I wanted, exactly the way I wanted to do it.

Singer, Erykah Badu, best explained the delicate nature of personal expression in the live intro of Tyrone, when she said, “Now, keep in mind I’m an artist, and I’m sensitive about my ‘..ish’.” [edit mine] Me, too, Erykah!!! As it turned out, my experiences were incredibly fun and rewarding to produce, and the families loved them so much that I just kept going. Fundraising and profit, be damned! I knew eventually that I had to figure out how to grow and develop this idea, if it were to continue. I knew it would come to me, if only I could produce just one more….

Wait! How Long Have You Been Doing This?!!!

A long time. I spent the earliest part of my career in tech, when companies were called…wait for it….”dot coms”. Yahoo! had an iconic billboard over the Bay Bridge; San Francisco and BART were always packed, and startup founders spent way too much money on launch parties, only to go belly up a year later. I still have one of Webvan’s, original laminate catering platters (it’s strangely very high quality!!!), and my husband continues to wear a promotional Hawaiian shirt that he got from one of their customer-wooing competitors. Oh! and our single pint ice cream delivery orders undoubtedly contributed to this company’s premature demise. In hindsight, it’s hard to believe that this over the top satirical comedy actually mirrored reality. It did. Tech and I go back like babies and pacifiers, and I have a lot of 90’s start-up swag and tchotchkes in my garage; so I’m both an historian and museum, all rolled up in one. This was just the beginning. I’ve had a career that spans all industries, verticals and marketing disciplines.

What Was Your Motivation for Creating This Organization?

My answer is a love letter to creativity; but also a deeply held belief that it was my responsibility to share wisdom, truth, dignity, art and love with future generations. Also, one of my greatest motivations was to combat and counter-balance the extremely negative portrayals of African-American women, (and Black people, in general), that are constantly promoted within entertainment and pop-culture. Madame X was a personal form of resistance, and a publicly staged revolt against what I felt was becoming a permanent state of debasing content and behavior. I understood that I couldn’t change the world, but I knew that I could positively influence someone’s life within my sphere of influence. The idea came to me well over a decade ago: Why not create incredible, elevated, educational experiences for kids that promoted innovative thinking and stimulated their creativity; while also teaching each bespoke experience through the lens of African-American innovators, leaders, heroes and inventors?

I knew that if kids learned about our complicated history, filled with success, dignity, innovation, resistance, resilience and love; it could change how they felt about themselves, their communities, and the value of their lives. They would also become far more critical of these negative, willfully-produced representations, and less personally influenced to internalize and adopt them.

Why is Sharing Our History So Important?

There are so many unsung heroes who will be lost to time and memory, if we don’t step up and teach this aspect of AMERICAN HISTORY to kids and adults of all nationalities, races, ethnicities and backgrounds. Also, once famously and wisely mused,"Those who cannot remember the past, are condemned to repeat it." Truer words have never been spoken.

I decided to create fun, highly-elevated, ‘edutainment’ experiences with an ‘African-American twist,’ and recruit warm, talented, skilled professionals as subject matter experts and guest-instructors. Despite my obvious target audience and focus; I believe that history lessons should be colorblind, because we’re all bonded and inextricably linked together. However…..although, our history is shared; it’s neither equal, nor are our lives experienced the same way.

A greater respect for African-American culture, for example, would entail the expansion of our stories beyond that of slavery and the Civil Rights Movement. How can you really respect a racial or ethnic group, when you unconsciously support the notion that they only have a few people among them worth noting?

We have innovators, inventors, intellectuals, business leaders, philanthropists and every day heroes, who have been waiting patiently for their stories to be told; and as a society, we’ve been mismanaging a huge backlog of etheral history-makers. We need to “rethink” history, how we express it, and the stories we tell. Retreading the same stories without sharing new ones is tantamount to an historical Groundhog Day; and, ironically, history is created anew, with each passing day.

Although, I’ve spent a lot time discussing history here - I believe in the importance of receiving a high-quality education, which was a strong value passed down to me from my parents. In a forthcoming post, I’ll include my thoughts about the almost limitless benefits of offering eager and inquisitive minds with educational experiences that are creative, challenging, holistic & multifaceted.

Who Funds the Organization?

Madame X has always been founder & participant supported. My family is the primary financial donor behind the organization, and my friends and family have occasionally contributed modest funds to underwrite some of the cost of my experiences. To the great detriment of the organization, I’m a creative and an educator; not a fundraiser. If you’d like to volunteer for that job, I won’t turn it down.

What’s Next for Madame X? Are You Launching Any New Experiences?

I’ve developed a treasure trove of spectacular future experiences. I’ll have to fundraise to get them out to the world. Incidentally, Madame X was originally going to be a pop-up experience that I would ‘take on the road’ to other communities based on consumer demand, and/or my interest in specific markets; so we’ll see where I take it in the future. I must say, though, that every time I take a break, I run into a Madame X family that is waiting patiently for the next one. The families keep taking me out of semi-retirement! True story. It just happened again yesterday, as of this writing.

What Have You Learned During This Journey of Education, Creativity, Community and Self-Exploration?

I love all of the Madame X families that I’ve met, and I’m humbled by the positive social and educational impact that my organization has had on participating kids. Parents tell me their children have impressive memory recall and retention with regard to my rich and expansive material (which they wouldn’t have learned anywhere else!!!); and the kids beam with pride when they explain to me what they’ve learned and shared with their classmates. One of our parents moved their vacation dates around, so that their child wouldn’t miss an upcoming event. What an honor! I’ll always cherish the supportive words, nice notes and videos sent to me by Madame X’ers and their parents.

Final Thoughts

What I’d most like to share with parents and educators regarding my experience is that adopting a more contemporary ideology, and developing more engaging teaching methodologies and materials is crucial for learning.

My goal for kids is to encourage them to think freely, creatively and critically. I want them to stay curious and pursue that curiosity with questions. Lots of them. I want them to apply what they’ve learned from different disciplines, seemingly unrelated references, experiences, facts, subjects and sources.

I hope that young people never underestimate or abandon their own God-given logic, creativity and problem-solving skills. Although, technology (and data) is king, it can also be an evil court jester, moving around like a digital Rube Goldberg machine; going everywhere, but a straight line to the truth. Sometimes simply being curious, critical, and able to identify the key intersections that exist between, and, among, different concepts, ideas, people and things; will spark new ideas, promote innovative thinking, and help enhance wisdom and greater personal and societal understanding. I hope this not just for children, but for everyone.

Stay Curious. Seek Truth. Embrace Humanity.