Standing comfortably in her tastefully decorated kitchen, this blonde-haired, blue-eyed woman takes a moment to reflect on her full day. This thirty-something-year-old conveys a sense of elegance and sophistication even in the setting of her eclectically modern home.

Dee Centurion created her own consulting firm in Dallas, Sierra Strategies,. In recent years, her firm has garnered the attention of many in the communications field.

What Centurion has accomplished in her relatively short lifespan is something that is more and more common in the workforce. She has held many jobs and positions of power in the workforce. This alone is a gender and generational shift traditions from the past.

The Indiana native explains how her life began. She remembers distinctly how her family’s kitchen played such an integral role in her childhood.

“My parents always invited missionaries to dinner, so as a child I ate Asian food and had African women tie turbans up in my hair,” she said. “That’s what got me interested in the world beyond what was in small town Indiana.”

From those initial flirtations with culture, she began to cultivate an interest in journalism.

“It was a chance to do things that were current, and hip, and I could always be learning.” she said.

She described a man in her hometown that had his hand in everything. When asked what he did in life he replied that it all started with a degree in journalism.

For many years he would serve as Centurion’s mentor. She wanted to emulate him and subsequently focused on achieving her goals.

Centurion received a prestigious scholarship to Indiana University where she began her own photography club, became involved in Greek life and subsequently became her sorority’s philanthropy chair. She also was heavily involved in the Court Appointed Special Advocates (CASA), which advocates for abused and neglected children.

Centurion claims that the highlight of her college days was spent overseas instead of the confines of Bloomington, Indiana. The culture bug that she always had finally got the chance to be cultivated as well. After spending over eight months in Singapore and a summer in Mexico City she learned more about the world around her that had always fascinated her.

The woman standing so effortlessly in her kitchen told stories of the world and experiences far away, but her smart eyes conveyed deep understanding of what those experiences meant and how they impacted her business expertise in the years to come.

After college, Centurion accepted a job in Houston with a small marketing firm where she was able to begin her experimentation with social media. This job transitioned into a new position dealing with crisis management for major pipeline companies. With this job she focused on internal communications and ran the “full gamut” of activities within the corporation.

She was then hired away by Dynegy, a major player in the energy field at the time. Her function was to be a media relation’s consultant, and became heavily involved in the potential Enron/Dynegy merger.

That is, until the term “wash trades” became a problem.

“What was your wash trade value?” This simple question posed to Centurion from a Bloomberg reporter signified the beginning of the end for Dynegy. After this initial question the truth about many of the Houston based companies’ began to come to the surface. And Centurion was caught in the middle of all of it.

The onslaught of media coverage meant that Centurion had to find a comprehensive process to monitor what the press was reporting. From this the “Truth Squad” was created. This squad monitored real time wire reports and worked directly with organizations like the Associated Press to get the, “right and truthful story out there, rather than give into the rumor mill the press that it wanted it to become.”

After the extensive work with Dynegy, Centurion decided to move on. That’s when she decided to pack up and move to Seattle. There, she began work with CASA once more. At CASA, she developed a social networking site that allowed family court judges to collaborate on new ideas to help children who fall though the loopholes on the justice system.

“I wanted to create not just a state level tool for CASA, but one that could be implemented on the national level,” she said.

Soon, her life shifted from finding balance in her career to finding balance with a family. She gave up her job, parked her BMW in her parent’s garage, and traveled with her new husband around the world for eight months.

“I loved the spontaneity of it all, we had just gotten married and then we went on the adventure of a lifetime.,” said her husband Carlos.

After their return, they settled into a small cottage in Dallas where they live today. All around the house, suggestions of their travels linger as they both continue to clean the kitchen. The vibrant South American paintings balanced with the soft crème walls perfectly accent their union: Carlos is originally from Paraguay.

Presently, Centurion focuses on her children and communications firm.

“What makes Sierra different from many other firms are the computational analysis profiles that we put into every project,” she said. “We can tell you mathematically why something will or will not work. Technology that is relatively unharnessed in this market.”

Centurion says that in the ever-evolving job market you have to evolve as well. This is something she is constantly doing with her firm.

“Diversity and consistency are what every company looks for. You have to be that person,” she said.