As a Strategic Insights Manager at Interrupt, most days feel like drinking from a fire hose. Information comes at me fast and from every direction. My job is to gather, evaluate, and synthesize every possible data point about a client and their business—how they grow, how they communicate, how they connect with their audiences, and how they plan for the future.
I dig into endless secondary research. I question sources. I look for gaps. I ask myself over and over: Have I turned over every stone? What matters most? What information is credible, and what’s just noise? Ultimately, my role is about helping clients make the best possible decisions for the best possible outcomes—even when those decisions are uncomfortable. At Interrupt, we believe clarity doesn’t come from avoiding complexity; it comes from leaning into it.
I just didn’t realize how much this way of thinking would prepare me for the fight of my life.
When the doctor said over the phone, “You have aggressive breast cancer,” something unexpected happened.
I didn’t panic. I didn’t cry. I didn’t feel much of anything at all.
Instead, I slipped straight into Strategic Insights Manager mode.
What are the next steps? Where do I get good information? What does success look like? How do I evaluate my options and make the best decision for the best outcome?
It wasn’t denial—it was instinct. This was how I had been trained to operate.
One of Interrupt’s core philosophies is that real progress requires disruption. Growth rarely happens in comfort, and the most meaningful breakthroughs often start with hard questions, and usually end with hard decisions.
Throughout my journey, the hardest part wasn’t the diagnosis itself—it was watching other people’s emotions. Fear, sadness, panic. I absorbed all of it while feeling, oddly, like I had some level of control.
If I could gather enough facts, ask enough questions, and think creatively enough, I believed I could influence the outcome.
At work, our team often makes clients a little uncomfortable—by design. It’s intentional. Discomfort is where growth happens. It’s how we help clients see new approaches and challenge old assumptions.
I quickly realized oncologists operate the same way.
Nothing about breast cancer is comfortable. And the path of least resistance is rarely the best one.
Just like in strategy work at Interrupt, the question isn’t What’s easiest right now?—it’s What’s the best long-term solution, even if it disrupts everything? Short-term comfort rarely delivers long-term results.
When working on a strategy project, we never rely on a single perspective. We pressure-test assumptions by listening to internal and external stakeholders, understanding motivations, and identifying trade-offs before making recommendations.
I applied the same approach to my diagnosis.
I spoke with surgeons, oncologists, genetic specialists, plastic surgeons, and other medical professionals. I also talked with current cancer patients, survivors, and loved ones.
This helped me understand not only the medical options, but the drivers behind each choice—risk tolerance, long-term outcomes, emotional impact, family considerations.
And just like in any organization, I knew this decision wouldn’t affect only me.
I couldn’t make it in a silo.
That meant having some of the hardest (and most uncomfortable) conversations of my life with the people closest to me. In many ways, it mirrored client-side decision-making—where leadership choices ripple through teams, partners, and customers. Emotion entered the room, and I had worked so hard to keep my own emotions at bay. Those conversations were far more difficult than any meeting room debate or client workshop.
Once every conversation was complete, every data point considered, and every deal-breaker put on the table, it was time to do what I always ask clients to do: Keep moving forward.
This is something we ask of our clients all the time: once the work is done, once the insights are clear, once the risks are understood—you commit.
My plan for success was a bilateral mastectomy.
It wasn’t comfortable. It wasn’t the easiest route. But it gave me the greatest odds of long-term success.
No chemo. No radiation. Just a physically and emotionally demanding recovery.
Just as I started to feel semi-normal again, reconstruction surgery began—another recovery, another adjustment, another redefinition of what “normal” looked like.
At Interrupt, we define success not by avoiding risk, but by making informed, intentional decisions that stand the test of time.
I’m grateful I had something familiar to lean into during the most unfamiliar experience of my life. Insights and strategy didn’t just help me do my job—they helped me survive.
So what does success look like now?
Being cancer-free.
Loving up on my ten grandkids.
Enjoying life.
And continuing to work at an agency I love, helping clients navigate complexity, discomfort, and change. Because I know firsthand that the hardest paths often lead to the strongest outcomes.
Sometimes strategy isn’t just about business. Sometimes it’s about survival!
As part of our celebration of Women in Construction Week and Women's Month, we sit down with Bethany Sanker, Interrupt’s director of client services, to learn more about how her experiences as a female leader have shaped her career. She shares how she handled the speed bumps, and her perspective on the benefits of recruiting more diverse teams in the building and construction industries, in this Q&A.
Staying connected with the people around us is rooted in acts of doing good. Of reaching out. Of giving back. It’s one of the reasons Interrupt prioritizes donating time and goods to local organizations, as a group and as individuals. Hear from the team about why the office giveback is so much more than a seasonal commitment.
Our director of finance and human resources explains in short, poetic form how our attitudes and actions can have an impact in the office, for better or worse. What energy will you pass on today?