Ella Spillane (’21 Intl. Busi., Mktg.) built a career founded on a passion for global connections, a sense of adventure, collaboration, and an appreciation for cultural and natural wonders. She began this journey as a portfolio development principal at Boeing Ventures, which gave her exposure to talented entrepreneurs and leaders. During this time, she developed a vision for founding her own business, Trailbound Yoga, a venture that blends outdoor travel and mindfulness. With an upcoming trip planned in the Italian Dolomites, her work reflects how global business training can shape both professional pathways and entrepreneurial goals.
“I was drawn to international business because I knew that whatever I ended up doing for my career, I wanted it to be globally focused,” Spillane says.
Building a global foundation at WSU
Having grown up traveling internationally with her family, Spillane arrived at the Carson College with a strong interest in building a globally focused career. Majoring in international business and marketing, she began developing the tools she now uses to work across cultures and global markets. She says some of the most valuable courses of her academic career focused on intercultural management and global business strategy and helped her understand how communication styles, expectations, and decision-making vary across demographics and regions.
Her experience studying abroad in Barcelona cemented these lessons. She describes her time in Spain as one of the most impactful parts of her undergraduate education because it exposed her to diverse viewpoints in and out of the classroom.
“It opens up your perspective to how peoples’ culture, their history, and the place they live in can shape their worldview and how exposure to other perspectives can shape our own,” she says. “It really taught me humility.”
Applying business training in a global career
Today, Spillane works with Boeing Ventures, where she collaborates with founders and teams across the aerospace industry. Her role includes supporting venture initiatives around the world and helping coordinate the team’s presence at major international events, including aerospace exhibitions in Dubai and Paris. Working with companies from different countries has reinforced the value of the intercultural skills she developed in business school.
“Having a business education with a global focus has set me up for success and taught me to be as respectful and thoughtful as I can when engaging across global communities,” Spillane says.
While her work at Boeing centers on innovation and investment, it also informed another path she began exploring outside of her corporate role. Connecting her professional and educational experience with personal interests, Spillane founded Trailbound Yoga, a venture that pairs backpacking trips with yoga and mindfulness exercises in the wilderness.
Growing Trailbound Yoga with intention
Trailbound Yoga grew out of Spillane’s connection to the outdoors and her long-standing interest in yoga. Raised in a family that spent significant time in wilderness environments, she saw an opportunity to combine those influences into a community-driven experience.
“I really wanted to bridge the two most healing aspects of my life—the wilderness and yoga—but I couldn’t find a community that was doing that,” she says. “I thought, what could be better than just creating the community I want to be part of and sharing it with others?”
Spillane says her time at Carson, particularly an entrepreneurship course and participation in the Business Plan Competition, where her team earned second place, helped her build the skills she would later apply as a business owner.
Those experiences provided a framework she still relies on when developing new trips and managing operations.
“I think my training at Carson is a big part of why I felt I had at least the tools to give entrepreneurship a shot,” she says. “Those processes and tools created a really great framework I used to start Trailbound Yoga.”
As a founder, Spillane manages multiple aspects of the venture herself, from logistics and marketing to early legal documentation. She says her entrepreneurship training at Carson empowered her to navigate diverse responsibilities and claim a stronger sense of ownership in the venture.
This year marks a milestone for Trailbound Yoga as Spillane prepares to lead her first international group to the Italian Dolomites. She says the trip was built with her commitment to responsible global partnerships in mind—she will collaborate with local mountaineering guides to ensure safety while supporting existing businesses within the region.
She hopes to expand the program, including a future goal of guiding a group along routes in Nepal and introducing new destinations as her venture grows.