ABOUT

WHO I AM

I'm Lace.

I grew up surrounded by my Jamaican family, their culture, and their food. My white family was absent from my life. What that meant, practically, was that the kitchen was one of the most important places I knew. Not as a room where meals were made — as a place where I understood who I was, where I belonged, and how people showed care for one another.

In the culture I was raised in, food was never separate from those things. It was how knowledge passed between generations. It was how community was built and maintained. It was how people sustained themselves and each other through genuinely hard circumstances — not as a luxury, but as a foundation. I absorbed that before I could articulate it.

I have spent 18 years+ since then applying and studying what I witnessed growing up — the connection between nourishment, mental health, family dynamics, and the capacity to lead. Coaching entrepreneurs through burnout. Building businesses. Raising humans. Learning what actually sustains people over time.

And everything I have studied keeps confirming what I already knew: you cannot build a sustainable business without building a sustainable team. And that starts with nourishment.

HOW I GOT HERE

I spent years working behind the scenes — as a tech concierge, a systems architect, an invisible part of other people's empires. I was good at my work. But I was always in the shadows.

Then I had a realisation: I was tired of building other people's dreams. It was time to build something I truly believed in.

That something is nutrition, mental health, and sustainable business.

I started where I could see the need most clearly: my own family.

I watched my oldest child learn to cook at age two. Not because I had a parenting plan. Because I had grown up knowing — in the way you know things that are shown to you before you have words for them — that the kitchen is where capability is built. That was the inheritance I had been given. It was the first thing I wanted to pass on.

By seventeen, they had brand deals with major platforms, invitations to cook in world-class kitchens, and the resilience to run their own business.

The kitchen gave them agency. That is what I want the world to have.

MY RESEARCH

Growing up, I watched food do things that no wellness programme has ever replicated. It regulated mood. It built confidence. It created belonging. It sustained people through genuinely hard circumstances — not because anyone had read a study about it, but because it was simply understood to be how you took care of people and yourself.

I spent the next 18 years trying to understand why — and mentally documenting what I found across communities, families, and businesses that were thriving or struggling, often for reasons nobody could name.

The connections I kept finding:

· Food security and mental health

· Nutrition and decision-making capability

· Family dynamics and business resilience

· Equity and access to nourishment — and what happens to performance when that access is absent



Part of this became an important piece of a co-authored published research paper: "Is It LEGIT? Redefining Equity, Leadership and Influence in Online Business."

It's evidence-based. It's lived experience. It's rigorous.

The companies and families who thrive are the ones who treat nourishment as a foundation — not an afterthought. That finding has been consistent across 18 years of obseravtion and research. And it is something I understood long before I could prove it.

WHY THIS MATTERS NOW

Most business leaders miss something obvious: your team's performance directly depends on nourishment.

Teams are exhausted because leaders are not building a nutritional foundation into their strategy. We are treating symptoms — meditation apps, wellness programmes, fruit bowls — while ignoring the foundation. Teams need to eat. Well. Consistently. And increasingly, they do not know how.

The generation now entering the workforce is the least cooking-literate in recorded history. The skill was never passed down — time poverty, ultra-processed food, and a culture that made cooking feel optional got there first. I grew up surrounded by a culture where that skill was considered as essential and as natural as any other form of care. Watching it disappear is not abstract for me. I understand what is being lost, because I know what it gave me.

Empire Kitchen exists because:

· Your team deserves to feel capable

· Your business deserves to be sustainable

· Nourishment is not a luxury — it is the foundation everything else is built on

· Mental health starts with feeding yourself well

· Culture shifts when leaders decide that nourishment matters

MY APPROACH

I don't do quick fixes. I don't do willpower speeches. I don't do shame.

I do:

· Evidence-based research applied to real problems

· Practical systems that actually work

· Accessibility — simple, not complicated

· Respect for where you are right now

· Real change that lasts

I'm part researcher, part strategist, part cheerleader.

I show up with data. I show up with recipes that come from a culture which has always understood food as medicine, as community, and as care — whole food, deeply nourishing, achievable in any kitchen.

And I show up with the belief that your team can do this, because I have watched people sustain themselves and each other through circumstances far harder than a busy working week.

CREDENTIALS & BACKGROUND

Research & Publications:

Professional Experience:

  • 18 years of practice, observation, and lived study

  • Studied in communities of color, women entrepreneurs, marginalized groups

  • Business systems architect (tech + operations + customer experience design)

  • Culinary Wellness Architect

  • Entrepreneur (multiple businesses)

  • Co-Founder, The Flavor Room™

  • Certified Freedom from Self-Sabotage Coach

  • Mother and family systems observer

Speaking & Media:

WHAT'S NEXT

I'm building a movement around sustainable teams. Teams that actually thrive. Teams that stay. Teams that make better decisions.

Empire Kitchen workshops bring this to small business teams.

Empire Kitchen memberships keep it going.

And I'm just getting started.

OUTSIDE THE WORK

When I'm not delivering workshops, over in The Flavor Room, or designing experiences, I'm:

· Cooking — always

· Reading (research, history, narratives)

· Spending time with my family

· Building community with entrepreneurs

· Thinking about systems and how to make them work better

All rights reserved.

© 2026 Empire Kitchen