Business Spotlight: Isabella Ulloa '11

Name: Isabella Ulloa

What year did you graduate from Ransom Everglades? 2011

What were your extracurricular activities when at Ransom Everglades? Cross country and track and field, which were more than anything, a social club for me, than an actual sport. But I loved it.

Where did you attend college? Tufts University

International Relations. They had an international relations concentration in international security, which is why I pursued that major. I was interested in understanding national security and its connection to foreign policy.

Dr. King and Dr. Stone. What was so memorable about both of them, though they approached the subject matter in different ways, was that they challenged their students to think very differently and to gain exposure to people in environments that they might not otherwise have exposure to. It was a really helpful way to expand perspective, in particular about how privileged each of us was to be in that room. We learned to have more empathy for other people.

A quote I recall learning from Señora Rodriguez's Spanish class when we read Antonio Machado’s poem called “Caminante, No Hay Camino.” My favorite line in the poem is, “Caminante, no hay camino, se hace camino al andar.” I think it's a good reminder that oftentimes, few things are in our control, other than how we choose to show up and perceive the world.

What were your first few jobs out of college/in public service? I went into public service because I wanted to be around really smart, strategic people who were uniquely motivated to leave the world better than they found it. Very intentionally, I wanted to first start in policy spaces versus politics, the latter of which is very different. My first job out of college was as a briefer for the Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security, where my job was to ensure that he was prepared for his daily engagements. Soon thereafter, I transitioned into a role called Special Assistant to the Secretary of Homeland Security, where I worked on a number of different special projects related to national security. That’s where I got to partner with really senior people to make progress on big priorities, and I grew a lot.

After that, I went to a nonprofit that focuses on helping at-risk young people become economically mobile. I was hired to open that nonprofit's fifth office, which ended up being in Detroit, where I lived for about 6 months and then transitioned into the role of managing director, where I was in charge of helping fundraise and negotiate partnerships to help that nonprofit grow. Toward the tail end of that, I was also serving on the transition team for President Biden, where my job was to figure out how to implement priorities very early on at DHS (Department of Homeland Security) and to bring on the early team. And then on inauguration morning, I went in as one of two deputy chiefs of staff. I oversaw the national security portfolio of that agency, which is the third-largest federal agency. It has over 20 subagencies, including TSA, CISA (the nation's civilian cybersecurity agency), the Secret Service, CBP, FEMA and the Coast Guard.

PSA launched quietly at the beginning of 2025, but we started building it in the summer of 2024. It emerged from a personal need. Given my prior work, I was facing increased risks and needed to make some investments in my home security that were cost-prohibitive, and I needed family help to secure my home. I am in a very privileged situation. So I started calling several former colleagues and friends of theirs to get a sense of whether they had experienced similar issues. What I learned very quickly is that each of them had, at one point, feared for their own or their family's safety, and that when you look at the data over the last 10 years, the threat landscape, or the threats facing people who have chosen to serve in government at every single level of government, has absolutely skyrocketed. Despite the increased threats, there has not been any kind of solution to meet the moment. So we started building what we wished we had, which was to make it a lot faster and a lot more affordable to be able to find trusted services that can not only better protect our privacy and our security, both physical and digital, but that could also protect our personal and professional well-being. What we have built is the first marketplace for the four million people who have chosen to serve, current and former, across political lines, at every level of government, so that they can access the services that they need and deserve.

This is deeply personal to me in two ways. First, I've personally been impacted, many of my friends and former colleagues have been personally impacted, and the reality is that you don't go into public service to get rich; you're working long hours, and the topics are heavy. Then all of a sudden you go to your employer, reporting that someone just threatened your kids, and that employer usually can't do anything. It's an incredibly broken business model if what we want is for the government to deliver. So it's personal to me because I experienced it, but it's also personal to me because I'm the child of Cuban immigrants. To me, a hallmark of being an American is being able to disagree without threatening somebody's life. So if you're getting people into democracy, the conditions under which you ask people to serve matter.

Generally speaking, I define success as living in alignment with your values, because that can mean lots of different things. For me personally, it means that it's very important to do work that makes the world a better place, that is challenging and innovative in healthy ways, and that allows me to work with really smart people who have similar values. I think the really cool part about my experience at Ransom Everglades was that, first of all, it created an environment where it was really cool to be smart, and second, where it was okay to explore different paths to success and feel supported in each.

The non-negotiable quality we look for in every single team member is that they have high integrity, because I believe everything stems from that. We looked first and foremost for people with demonstrated track records of operating with integrity. Then we wanted to hire as many former public servants as possible to show, number one, that their skills are transferable outside of government, and number two, because we believe in having proximity to the problem. Each of us on this team has proximity to the problem that we're trying to solve and brings a diverse range of perspectives that help the team create better solutions. Transferability is important because what we're building is a social enterprise. This is a company that is designed to scale.

Olivia and I reconnected about two years ago, when Olivia was working for Senator Bennett of Colorado. She had previously been running his communications team and, at that point, had transitioned into the role of Deputy Chief of Staff and was considering moving back to Miami. We very quickly figured out that we had similar long-term professional interests in the sense that we, despite no longer working in government, wanted to continue working on things that we found fulfilling and that made the community stronger. So we kept in touch, and when she transitioned into consulting work, she was the first person I called to lead a much more sophisticated communications and marketing apparatus for our team. Danny and I have also known each other for a long time. He saw our public announcement in September and reached out to offer his support at the LAB Miami as we were refining our business model for phase two of growth. He helped connect me with some really interesting other business founders and experts based here in Miami through the space that he's cultivated at the LAB.

I think the biggest challenge as a founder in this space is that we are building an incredibly comprehensive organization that, at any given point, could be four different organizations. So the biggest challenge is around the steep learning curve that I personally face, learning different business models and adapting what makes sense to us in a way that will enable us to be financially sustainable long term. That's in large part why the reconnection with Danny at the LAB has been so valuable, because it's very helpful to have a thought partner on that. Danny is familiar with a lot of different business models and is able to sit down with me and pressure-test my own assumptions about what makes sense in terms of our growth strategy. He has helped us do so in a way that is really innovative, but is also not recreating the wheel where we don't need to. Then I think the greatest challenge being a woman founder is that unfortunately, I’m still often in spaces where, so frequently, I am the only woman in the room. It's not a new experience for me, but it requires really learning to trust yourself and cultivating allies in the room.

So far, my favorite part of my job is being able to go to bed every night knowing that we did something that day that helped at least one person. That's very meaningful to me.

My favorite saying these days is that if something is not worth asking for, it's not worth having. If you are really fulfilled by something, and you want to pursue it, and need help pursuing it, or want to seek out mentors to support your growth in that space, just ask. You'll be surprised at how many people will show up in really valuable ways. That's part of the beauty of the RE community, that it's always a family that will show up for each other.

Company name: The Public Service Alliance

Website: thepublicservicealliance.com

LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/public-service-alliance/