I spent a lot of 2025 thinking about what leadership should look like.
We are living through an acute leadership vacuum – our national authority figures are petulant, self-loathing manchildren who only understand vindictive lashing out, distraction and sowing hatred.
It’s a monster that will eat itself eventually, and we all have to protect ourselves from it in the meantime.
For me personally, it’s been a year of growing ever-closer to my purpose: the leader I’m destined to be and have always been in my heart. The meaningful support I can provide other people, either directly or through how I carry myself in public. So much of it comes down to self-love. That’s the model.
Human Centric Media, as a business, is actively building partnerships with people who lead not just with vision, but compassion. Leaders who understand that like it or not, we’re in this together, and that creating safety for others secures a more prosperous future for all of us.
Laura Nash is a freelance communications professional whose work, with my friends at the Northwest Health Foundation and elsewhere, is about building a compassionate future for us all to share. Together we have found ways to spotlight community organizations, families and programs that safeguard our connections – the bonds that make us strong, and will persevere through this season of scarcity.
When she approached us about headshots I was so excited not just to document our partnership but to get to know the sort of leader Laura is – you can catch a lot of what makes her special over email, but it’s fundamentally different being in the same room, talking about self-image and strategic personal branding.
When we produce portraits and headshots for leaders in the community, I always ask them what they’d like to convey about themselves. Sometimes it’s trust, or approachability, or professionalism .. but the folks who work with us all have something in common: a deeply-rooted sense of purpose.
A love for this community. A vision for what Portland can be. They have so much to offer, and they’re ready to step into well-earned leadership.
All of us in this city have benefitted from its uniqueness: it’s a place that invites you to grow into your most idealized self, without judgment or spiritual inhibition.
It NEVER gets old meeting people like Laura who have dedicated so much of their careers to making this a better home for more people. That’s what leadership is all about.
When things feel dark, or uncertain, that’s the energy that we look for. The people holding a lantern, that they built with grit and determination, that lead us into tomorrow.
