sheet A-5 · the architect
About Amanda
plate 01 · the principal. as shot.
I started in media. At Harpo, Oprah Winfrey’s company, I worked in media relations across her businesses: The Oprah Winfrey Show, O magazine, everything that carried her name. At Lifetime and with Rachael Ray, the work was translation: taking brands built in one medium into many, through marketing and partnerships. That was my education in how a person becomes a brand.
lululemon was my education in how a brand becomes a community. I joined in 2009 as a community manager and left 12 years later, having built its Asia business from a standing start to $950M. That growth story is famous. I was inside it, and for the Asia chapter, responsible for it.
The lesson from those years was bigger than a playbook. Culture, brand and community are one structure seen from three angles, and companies perform when the three agree. The relationship between a company’s culture and its brand is the one I understand most deeply.
The years since have taught me that a culture is often the leader’s patterns, scaled. How you run under pressure becomes how the company runs under pressure, and sooner or later, the market feels it. I kept getting hired to fix brands and finding the real work upstream, in the person running the whole place. Eventually I stopped calling that a detour. It is the work. It’s why there are two studios, one for the person and one for the company, and why they’re the same practice.
In 2022 I co-founded Hysterical: a community for talking honestly about menopause. Thirty expert talk shows, a retreat, 24,000+ downloads, zero budget. It also settled a question I’d carried since lululemon: my method works from zero.
the training
Underneath the commercial work: 20+ years of somatic and contemplative practice in the conscious-leadership tradition. Less mystical than it sounds. No incense, no mountain. I’m still a student of it. I use the same tools I hand to clients on myself first. The qualification is practice, and I’m still practicing.
life outside of work
I grew up in the Midwest, learned to walk and talk fast in New York, and grew up again in London, Hong Kong and Vancouver. Now I’m in Seattle, with my partner Erich, our kids Claudia and Edie, and our dog Greg.
Ready for a conversation? I’d like to hear from you.
start a conversation → hello@amandacasgar.com