Today on The Art of Lost and Found, our guest speaker is Cassey Shapiro. She is an Filipino-Australian living the dream in Amsterdam. We met many years ago when I was working with Impact Hub and came to the city often. Several years later when I moved to Amsterdam, Cassey quickly became one of my besties. Her smile, sense of humor and dedication to having a good time endeared me to her forever.

After having worked in Advertising at Saatchi & Saatchi Australia, she went on to work at several advertising agencies in London, where she gained even more experience working with clients like Emirates, Sky, L'Oreal, and Suzuki before making her way to Amsterdam, where she completed her MBA. Cass spent several years rising up the ranks at WeWork Amsterdam yet she left just before the big epic crash that company and landed another level up at Reaktor, a European tech consultancy and agency, where she still works today.

The heart of her creative reinvention story came in the wake of a great loss that encompassed both her personal and professional life. She had to break down her entire identity since everything she had relied on to help her create it was based on external factors: a relationship, a job and a comfortable living situation. 

Cass’ creative journey and reinvention was something I witnessed in real time and couldn’t help but be inspired by her journey.