ABOUT OUR FOUNDER

Sydney Henriques-Payne is a strategist, storyteller and founder coach specializing in supporting early-stage start-ups, solo-entrepreneurs and small business owners.

She began Bridge and Ladder as an extension of the work she was doing as an HR business partner and executive coach — later expanding the business to provide broader strategy and systems support after working as an operations leader and Chief of Staff — leading several large-scale change management initiatives and working within the start-up accelerator space with founders preparing for scale.

With a background in communications and talent, Sydney has experience managing individual and organization-wide strategic refreshes, (re)brands and roll-outs, end-to-end. She deeply enjoys partnering with organizational leaders and creatives to co-design mission, vision and values of a brand and then building the aligned infrastructure needed to support it.

As a consultant, Sydney has worked across sectors. Her experience includes work with large corporate entities, small businesses and solo entrepreneurs. She has spent the bulk of her career working on smart, scrappy teams who make magic with minimal resources., including significant experience within the social impact sector. Her favorite clients are big picture visionaries — creatives telling meaningful stories through their art — and founders who are working to solve the world's biggest problems or building businesses that share their passions with the world around them.

Outside of strategy consulting and system building, Sydney is a writer and integrated producer. She has experience supporting multi-media production studios and podcast networks. This includes work as a writer, talent producer, story producer and creative operations lead for organizations like theGrio, UWish Co (A Baron Davis Enterprise) and Never Whisper Justice. She’s worked in support of podcasts, web series, commercials, feature films and documentaries.

In addition to technical writing and production, Sydney specializes in creative non-fiction. She most enjoys telling the stories of ordinary people in extraordinary ways. Inspired by the prose of James Baldwin, Sydney studied creative non-fiction in her undergraduate career with the intention to write inspiring narratives that codify the powerful oral histories within her community.

In her personal work, Sydney often writes about the nuance of race, culture and intersectional identity. Her visual storytelling projects focus on shining light on unsung heroes, centering communities of color. She has had the distinct pleasure to be a ghostwriter for a few greats, — from speeches to novels. Her favorite writing work has been freelance writing for American Greetings — a role she’d wanted since childhood.

Sydney received her Masters from Johns Hopkins University. She holds a Bachelors in English & Communications-Rhetoric with a Certificate in Community & Corporate Relations from the University of Pittsburgh. A DC native, Sydney is currently based in New York.

Pronouns: She/Her/Hers