Hi there and thanks for visiting! My name is Naomi. I’m a multi-talented creative person. For the last 15 years, along with my husband and partner Koldo, I have created several agencies related to branding, creativity, and self-discovery. I have worked in the fields of graphic and digital design, conceptual design, branding, UX design and strategy, conversion optimization, analytics, marketing and as an editor and publisher of a large online music and entertainment publication.
I’ve helped hundreds of clients small and large build strong online presences, brands, and businesses along with our own. In all of these endeavors, the common factor has always been a passion to make this world a better place by helping others embrace the unique gifts that they have.
For several years, I’ve had other women tell me how much I helped them with my work and I had a hard time accepting that. I never fully stepped into a teaching type of space because I never felt ready or quite good enough. I had an extremely high level of expectation of excellence for myself and believed I couldn’t truly help others until I had reached a certain level. I had a typical case of impostor syndrome. Except, what they don’t tell you is that the feeling of not being enough never leaves you and that level of excellence for yourself only gets higher.
With time and experience, I’ve come to accept that I don’t need permission from anyone to share the best of me. I can give myself permission to be generous and I can do my very best to offer what I can to help as many people as possible. That’s why I am working on this space for you. I hope you find what you need here and in turn, perhaps I can encourage you to share the best of yourself too.
Background & Story
I grew up in the 80’s in a very small town in Colorado. I’m proud of my roots and I feel blessed that I was able to have the experience of growing up in a small tight-knit community of warm and generous people.
At the same time, I am an extremely curious person and I knew at a young age that I would need to push myself to gain new experiences and to grow and evolve as a person. I met and fell in love with Koldo over the internet while that sort of thing was still uncommon and moved to Spain where we lived together for several years before moving to the U.S.
Koldo is a multi-creative artist who started working in the late 80’s in many types of creative projects, including art, music, publications, books, video and theatre. Koldo lived in Madrid, Spain and at the time had created one of the first and most popular online music publications, Intuitive Music.
Koldo grew up with a Basque heritage and culture, which was quite unique. The Basque culture is considered matriarchal. His father left the family when he was 6 years old and he grew up with his mother, sister, and grandma who were modern feminists.
When we met, I was surprised to find that he shared many of the same values and interests that I did. He’s a top rate cook (he hooked me with his lasagna, I won’t lie), he’d rather watch a romantic movie with me than watch football, and most of all, he’s aware of the importance of the role of the woman in today’s world.
Some of the projects Koldo and I have created together include:
- Intuitive Designs (2003 – 2013), a boutique design studio we created, making creative things for clubs and people in the entertainment industry.
- ShiftFWD (2010), a strategy consultancy which is now fully focused on helping clients form brand strategies and identities.
- Epokka (2013), an umbrella company for a unique line of notebooks we created and a crowdfunding project to go along with it.
- Nova Donna, this space you see here, founded on January 1, 2015.
Conclusion
I feel that Nova Donna is perhaps the most important thing we’ve worked together on to date. After more than a decade working with numerous women entrepreneurs, I’ve seen how challenging it can be to fit in a world that is presently unfriendly and unbalanced. And I’ve experienced this myself.
I know us women have come a long way. There are no laws holding us back from creating our own lives, our own businesses, and our own endeavors. But, there’s still a lot of systematic discrimination; most subtle, and much not subtle at all, that makes it harder for us as women. I often feel we have to make much more effort to get taken seriously and get the same results. It’s often frustrating and disheartening. Perhaps more women don’t talk about it publicly because we don’t want to seem ungrateful for how far we’ve come. I don’t know what all the reasons are.
This may be the state of things right now, but it doesn’t mean we can’t change them from the inside out, starting with ourselves.
It’s so important that we actively work on positive ways to empower ourselves and in turn support other women to be their best selves too. We can live and be the changes we want to see in the world.
Let’s start now!
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Want to find out more about us on our other spaces?
Our branding agency, Shiftfwd: www.shiftfwd.com
Koldo’s work: www.koldobarroso.com
