From the Baldwin stage to an award-winning podcast, Eve Simon ’87 has built a career around a lifelong passion: helping people discover, shape, and share their stories. Long before storytelling became a business buzzword, Eve was already finding ways to bring stories to life.

 

At Baldwin, she wrote and edited for The Hourglass, worked behind the scenes with the Maskers theater program, designed the Class of 1987’s blazer logo, and became her class speaker. Writing, designing, and communicating ideas were already part of her world. She didn’t know it then, but these experiences were laying the foundation for a 30+ year career spanning theater, digital design, branding, and podcasting.

 

Eve joined Baldwin in fifth grade after attending a co-ed public school. The transition to a small, all-girls environment took some adjustment, but it soon offered something transformative: the freedom to explore who she was without feeling pressured to fit a particular mold.

 

“Something magical happened,” she recalls. “I wasn't afraid to be who I was. I wasn't afraid to speak my mind. I wasn't afraid to do things I loved, like writing and designing and playing around in the theater.”

 

Small classes, teachers who knew her as an individual, and opportunities to explore her interests gave Eve room to discover her identity. “Going to an all-girl school let me be me, unapologetically,” she says.

 

One of the most influential people along that journey was Theater Teacher Lois Goutman. When Goutman suggested that Eve might not be a great actress but would be amazing backstage, Eve initially wasn't sure what to make of it. In retrospect, it was a pivotal moment. “I can probably trace my career in design to that moment,” she says. “It helped me think about a different way to tell stories, and broaden my mind to seeing things from a different perspective.”

 

Eve's career has never followed a straight line, and she considers that a strength. After Baldwin, she attended the University of Pennsylvania, where she majored in philosophy, before later earning an MFA in theatrical lighting design from Brandeis University. Her education combined analytical thinking with the creative challenge of building an experience from the ground up. Philosophy taught her to think critically and approach problems from multiple angles, while lighting design taught her how to shape an audience's experience “literally out of thin air” and tell a story through elements that might otherwise go unnoticed.

 

Then, in 1995, a year after completing her MFA, an unexpected opportunity emerged: the internet was creating an entirely new world of digital design. Eve was ready to explore a different creative environment and apply her skills in a new medium. With the confidence Baldwin had helped instill in her, she took the leap.

 

Over the next three decades, Eve built a career at the intersection of creativity and technology. She most recently spent 13 years as creative director of a digital agency, working with organizations including the League of Women Voters, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, The Huffington Post, The Nature Conservancy, Habitat for Humanity, the ALS Association, the Ad Council, and the National Audubon Society.

 

Her professional accomplishments also include speaking at South by Southwest (SXSW) three times, serving on its advisory board to evaluate sessions for future festivals, and judging Webby Awards. She also participated in the opening plenary session at a Nonprofit Technology Conference, discussing how an unconventional background helped shape her career.

 

Across these different experiences, her approach has remained consistent. Finding the story and figuring out how to tell it. For Eve, it’s “making someone feel something and knowing that learning is never lost and can be applied to any situation, at any time,” she explains.

 

In 2019, Eve made another leap, launching Eve Simon Creative to work with small businesses, experienced entrepreneurs, and personal brands. The decision followed an unexpected turning point. After 13 years as creative director at a progressive digital firm, she was let go as the company prepared to be sold. Happy in her role, she hadn't anticipated the change.

 

She began looking for another position while quietly developing the idea of working independently. Despite receiving several job offers, “In my gut I felt it was time to do my own thing,” she says. Seven years later, she is grateful she trusted that instinct.

 

Through Eve Simon Creative, she helps clients translate who they are into how they present themselves, bringing together strategy, design, and storytelling. Although her clients often span unfamiliar industries, Eve approaches each collaboration as an opportunity to listen, learn, and uncover what makes a client distinctive. “I get to learn about them so I can then represent those organizations in a visual way,” she explains.

 

Eve's passion for storytelling extends beyond her client work. She is the creator, host, and executive producer of GenX Stories, an award-winning podcast exploring how the so-called lost generation found itself.

 

The idea began at her 25th reunion at the University of Pennsylvania. Initially conceived as a writing project, GenX Stories evolved through experimentation. After attempts to recruit writers through a branded Instagram channel failed to take off, Eve began considering other creative mediums.

 

Podcasting was unfamiliar territory for a visual designer, but she wasn't deterred. She bought all the books she could find, including Podcasting for Dummies, and started teaching herself - again. The first version was a 12-episode season with an old friend. When it didn't quite match her vision, she moved on, determined not to abandon the idea. At the beginning of the pandemic, she recruited three cohosts: one friend from college, one from graduate school, and another person she had met only months earlier. And the chemistry clicked.

 

Now entering its eighth season, GenX Stories brings Eve together with her cohosts for frank, funny, and often unexpectedly revealing conversations about growing up Gen X and navigating life today. The podcast has won a W3 Award for Best in Show, been featured in Fast Company, and recently was recognized by AARP as one of its top podcasts for women, by women. The show reflects Eve's approach to storytelling: create space for authentic conversation and leave room for the unexpected.

 

One episode remains especially close to Eve’s heart. After the loss of her father, Dr. William H. Simon, a former member of Baldwin’s Board of Trustees and the namesake of the William H. Simon, MD, and Michele S. Simon Scholarship Fund at Baldwin, Eve joined a cohost who had recently lost her own mother to discuss the experience of losing a parent as a Gen Xer. Their conversation was raw and deeply personal, marked by tears and vulnerability. Eve chose to leave those emotional moments in the episode, preserving the honesty and authenticity of their shared experience.

 

That episode won an award in its own right, but its lasting significance goes beyond recognition. It captured what makes storytelling powerful: the opportunity to recognize ourselves in someone else's experience, feel less alone, and find connection in difficult moments.

After 30 years in the digital industry, Eve continues to draw on lessons from her earlier creative experiences while remaining open to new directions. Working independently has taught her to embrace change, adjust her plans, and become comfortable with uncertainty. Rather than treating the unexpected as an obstacle, she sees it as an opportunity for a story to evolve.

 

For current Baldwin students and recent alumnae considering creative careers or unconventional professional paths, Eve offers a simple message. “Know who you are and what makes you happy. Don't settle for what other people want you to do. You're writing your own story, not theirs,” she stresses.