mY story
Exploring Worlds
I’ve always been a bit of a misfit.
I grew up between Greece and The Netherlands; feeling at home everywhere and nowhere.
Greek in The Netherlands. Dutch in Greece.
That duality shaped me. It made me curious about people, meaning, and belonging. It also taught me adaptability; how to listen, observe, and start again.
I come from a big, loud Greek family.The kind with big emotions and lots of chaos. By the time I was twelve, I’d moved ten times. Change became my first teacher.
School never inspired me much; it felt too small for the questions I wanted to ask. Still, I did what was expected and studied Economics and Marketing, collected degrees, and built a shiny CV.
Then, in my early twenties, I did something unplanned.
I bought an around-the-world-ticket and traveled solo literally around the world.
That journey cracked something open. I began to see that success, as we’re taught it, is often a performance. And that the real work begins when you start listening to your own inner voice.
Moving to Greece
Eventually, I left my corporate advertising job and my life in Amsterdam to move back to Greece.
No plan. No safety net. Just an inner knowing and 10K in savings.
It felt like leaping without a parachute… and yet, I’d never felt more free.
Greece humbled me. Challenged me. Changed me.
I failed at multiple business ideas, freelanced to stay afloat, and borrowed money from family. But underneath the uncertainty, something real was forming.
Awakening
In my mid-twenties, I climbed the corporate ladder.
Dream jobs came and went; video producer, marketing manager, account manager. Big brands, nice offices, a life that looked impressive on paper.
But inside, I felt the quiet ache of misalignment.
I had followed someone else’s dream and ended up burning out.
That breakdown became a breakthrough.
I began studying psychology, spirituality, healing, and metaphysics while still working full-time in marketing.
One foot in logic; the other in the unseen.
Writing was always my outlet, my way to understand life. I started a blog, Guts & Tales, interviewing people who had chosen joy over convention. We built it on Squarespace together with my sister, not knowing that one simple website would plant the seed for what would come next.
Entrepreneurship
I became a certified coach and hypnotherapist and founded my first business called Be Your Own Muse, inspired by the Hill of the Muses beside my apartment in Athens.
I walked there daily to think, write, and listen to myself.
(And perhaps channel Aristotle; some days, I think I did.)
I build a coaching program that helped hundreds of women reconnect with who they were, and it helped me do the same.
But after a few years, I felt another truth emerging.
The coaching world no longer felt aligned.
I loved helping others, but I missed building things.
And I couldn’t ignore how inauthentic much of the industry had become; the formulas, the manipulation, the pressure to sell illusions.
I didn’t want that kind of success. So I quit.
My only prayer at that time was: “Please use me. Please guide me. Please show me the way.
Meraki Branding
Two weeks later, someone on LinkedIn asked if I could help with their website.
I said yes.
That one yes changed everything.
One website became ten, then twenty.
Soon after, Squarespace invited me to join their inner circle of expert designers.
And from there, Meraki Branding was born; a creative agency built with soul, scaled with strategy, and rooted in something bigger than business.
From the beginning, I made myself a promise:
I wouldn’t market the way I was “supposed” to.
No gimmicks. No formulas. No pretending.
Just honesty, truth, and real connection.
Today, our team has helped over 700 founders in more than 30 countries bring their visions online.
We became one of the leading Squarespace agencies worldwide not by chasing growth, but by choosing alignment.
The Meraki Way™
As Meraki grew, people began saying, “Let’s do it the Meraki way.”
I hadn’t realized I even had a way until others reflected it back to me.
The Meraki Way™ became more than a business approach; it became a lens for living.
It’s about blending intellect with intuition, growth with grounding, and doing with being.
It’s about creating from truth.
I am in the process of writing about it to articulate the philosophy behind it all. The book will be called, The Meraki Way, exploring how we can build brands, businesses, and lives that are both successful and soulful.
As a prelude, I created a free eBook: The Meraki Way: 101 Principles for a Soulful Life and Business. It’s a collection of lessons gathered from years of building, failing, leading, and learning what truly matters.
Download the eBook
… “with Meraki”
Writing has always been my throughline.
There’s a Moleskine in every bag I carry and endless notes on my phone.
For a while, I paused publishing my writing to grow my company. But eventually, I realized my real work was no longer in management, but in meaning-making.
In 2025 my partner took over daily operations of Meraki Branding so I could return to what I love most: writing and sharing with people. I do that on Substack under the publication name with meraki.
Today, I live in Dubai with my partner, building a business and a life that reflect what I believe most deeply:
The future lies in our humanness.
What’s Next…
I want to listen more, write and share wisdom.
I believe the world doesn’t need more noise; it needs more truth, authenticity and beauty. I would like to share that; from myself and others.
Especially in the age of AI, what will set us apart is our humanness and our ability to listen, trust, and create from that deep inner knowing.
“The heart has its reasons, which reason does not know.”
It’s scary to trust your truth.
But it’s also where everything real begins.
Download my Free E-book and prelude to my book
101 Principles for a Life and Business The Meraki Way