3,2,1 Irelaunch

Today we welcome Heidi Ravis, our iRelaunch recommended resume expert. Heidi has over 30 years experience working with relaunchers in a wide range of industries and situations. She's a relauncher herself and has a first-hand understanding of relauncher résumé challenges. In this episode, we speak with Heidi about her career journey, and get her best resume recommendations. Listening to this episode is a must if you’re struggling with framing your resume for career reentry programs and traditional positions.

Ying Chen Axt spent six years as an Infrastructure project finance consultant before taking a nine year career break. While on career break, working around her child’s schedule, she studied for and passed the three rigorous and notoriously difficult Chartered Financial Analyst exams to gain the highly regarded CFA credential. “It turned out the experience of studying for the CFA was instrumental: it not only helped me sharpen my technical skills, but also built my confidence and networks in the process.” Using the knowledge gained from studying for the CFA, and leveraging her interests in infrastructure project finance and public finance, Ying recently landed an offer from a public finance investment banking team of a boutique women-owned, women-led investment bank. We will get into the details of Ying’s career relaunch journey in today’s conversation.

Christine Fay is the Human Resources Manager at Grenova, a biotechnology start-up focused on waste reduction solutions. A human resources professional with extensive experience in human capital consulting across a variety of sectors, from Fortune 500 companies to federal government agencies, Christine relaunched her HR career after a seven-year career break. Christine serves as the Director of Learning Events and on the Board of Directors of the Richmond, Virginia chapter of the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM). Our conversation with Christine focuses on specific networking strategies she used to successfully relaunch her career and the role of professional associations in upskilling, reskilling, and networking.

Author, Speaker, Educator and Coach Steven Campbell joins Carol to discuss the power of the brain and how destructive negative self-talk can be, especially during a prolonged job search. Steven points out “your brain believes everything that you tell it” and having a more positive discussion with your brain can change your life. He will also discuss how his personal experience changing a negative narrative into a positive one led to the work he’s doing today. This is a rebroadcast of a previously aired episode.

Priya Venkatesan works as a Business Systems Analyst at University of California, Davis. She relaunched into her position with UC Davis after a 16 year career break. Her relaunch involved many job applications, interviews and rejections before she ultimately found success. She became a certified Scrum Master during her career break, and since she's been back at work, she has achieved her Lean Six Sigma white, yellow, and green belts. Priya calls attending the iRelaunch Return to Work conference while she was relaunching, “life-changing”. In the ultimate full circle, she returned to the iRelaunch Return to Work Conference in 2022 to speak about how she successfully relaunched! Her mantra to everyone is keep pursuing your dream job and don't give up.

Jill Johnson is the co-founder and CEO of the Institute for Entrepreneurial Leadership (IFEL), based in Newark, New Jersey. IFEL is an independent nonprofit organization that supports economic development through entrepreneurship. IFEL recently acquired Pipeline Angels, founded by Natalia Oberti Noguera, who is a member of the iRelaunch Advisory Board. As a 30 year champion for black businesses, Jill is a pioneering voice for inclusive entrepreneurial ecosystems and access to capital. She's the driving force behind the Black Angels initiative to drive diversity and inclusion within the investor ecosystem. In 2022, Jill was named one of Crane's New York Business Whole Health Heroes for her work creating pathways for Black and Latinx entrepreneurs and small business owners to have entrepreneurial success. Hear Jill discuss how her personal and professional experiences formed her passion to create initiatives within the D&I investment space, and the importance of strategic volunteering for people returning to w

Today we welcome Wendy Sachs, a seasoned communications executive and creative storyteller. Wendy has spent more than two decades in media as a journalist, Capitol Hill Press secretary, Emmy Award-winning TV producer, Forbes columnist, author, film director, and digital editor in chief. Additionally, Wendy is a frequent keynote speaker giving talks about growing confidence, embracing failure, engineering serendipity and taking risks. In today's episode, we speak with Wendy and her career pivots and the career breaks that she's taken along the way.

Today we welcome Jennifer Chin Schnabl, who relaunched her finance career four years ago. Jennifer is currently a Vice President in the Capital Markets group at State Street Global Advisors, where she is responsible for managing and developing relationships and strategic initiatives with top tier investment banks and liquidity providers. In today’s episode, we speak with Jennifer about her return to work journey, and her unusual decision to plan for her career break by attending an iRelaunch return to work conference at the start of her break.

Chip Conley, co-founder of MEA (Modern Elder Academy), started his professional career disrupting the hospitality industry twice, first, as the founder of Joie de Vivre Hospitality, the second largest operator of boutique hotels in the world, and then as Airbnb's head of Global Hospitality and Strategy leading a worldwide revolution in travel. Chip co-founded MEA in January, 2018. Dedicated to reframing the concept of aging, MEA supports students to navigate midlife with a renewed sense of purpose and possibility. Chip's upcoming book, Learning to Love Midlife, 12 Reasons Why Life Gets Better With Age, is about rebranding midlife to help people understand a life stage that is misunderstood. It will be released in January, 2024. In today's episode, we speak with Chip about what it means to be a modern elder and the evolving perception of aging.

Samantha Orlando is Senior Systems Engineer at Lockheed Martin. Samantha, who has a bachelor's degree in ocean engineering from Florida Atlantic University started her career in 2003 as a systems engineer at Lockheed Martin, where she built underwater vehicles. A decade later, Samantha resigned for medical reasons. In March, 2021, Samantha resumed her engineering career by returning to Lockheed Martin through their career reentry program, Chapter Next. We don't often have the opportunity to speak with a relauncher whose career break was for health reasons and who relaunched a technical career at their pre-career break employer. Listen in as Samantha shares how she made her amazing comeback.

Keita Young is an attorney who is currently Head of Diversity, Equity & Inclusion at FanDuel. After practicing employment law earlier in her career, Keita took an 11-year career break from the legal profession. During that time she was an entrepreneur - owning a children’s specialty boutique and eventually relaunched her legal career through JPMorgan Chase’s ReEntry Program. She was selected for the inaugural 2014 Legal ReEntry cohort and over the next 8 and 1/2 years, Keita rose in seniority in the legal department, moved to Human Resources to program manage a global diversity strategy and eventually rejoined the legal department to serve as JPMC's Global Head of Outside Counsel Engagement. Keita left JPMC to become the first head of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion for FanDuel, the fast-growing sports-tech entertainment company. This episode is the podcast version of a previously recorded video interview, aired in its entirety on the iRelaunch website. https://www.irelaunch.com/resources/keita-young-career-

Katie Perry is the Chief Executive of the Daphne Jackson Trust, which under her leadership has become the UK’s leading organization dedicated to helping returners relaunch their research careers. Katie is a physicist with a background in science communication. She holds a doctorate degree in Physics from the University of Surrey, where she worked with the Trust's namesake and the first female physics professor in the UK, Professor Daphne Jackson. In 2022, Katie was awarded an honorary degree by the University of Surrey in recognition of her unwaveringly commitment to securing the legacy of the Daphne Jackson Trust’s vision. Since inception, the Daphne Jackson Trust has helped more than 480 individuals relaunch their careers in STEM and other fields.

Tcheula Lienou, a Senior Controls Hardware Engineer with Trane Technologies took a ten-year career break to raise her three children before relaunching her career in 2019. Tcheula participated in the inaugural cohort of Ingersoll Rand’s ReLaunch career reentry program, which is now run by Trane Technologies following a 2020 corporate restructuring. Her focus is in new product development, life cycle engineering, quality and supply chain. We will speak with Tcheula about her career path, career break and her career progression since participating in the ReLaunch program.

Carmen Park is a technical leader with experience in the automotive, electronics, telecom, semiconductor, defense, and medical device industries. She is a senior manager at Johnson & Johnson and is pursuing a master’s degree in data analytics at Penn State University. Carmen returned to a technical role after an 8-year career break. Listen in as she describes the key role her husband had in supporting her before and during her relaunch, and how her involvement in the Society of Women Engineers had a positive impact on her relaunch. Carmen's picture was featured on posters all over the Society of Women Engineer's annual Conference in 2022, which had 16,000 people in attendance! Carmen also describes how her Master's degree has been a factor in her career progression.

Today we welcome Jana Toner, Senior Vice President with American Corporate Partners, which is dedicated to assisting US veterans and active-duty military spouses in finding rewarding careers. Based in Washington DC, Jana has over 20 years’ experience in the private and public sectors, including working in two White House administrations. She took an eight-year career break to care for her children. In this episode, we speak with Jana about what steps she did during her relaunch to keep her “toe in” and relaunch back into a public service role in government.

Susan Golden is the director of DCIX at the Stanford Distinguished Careers Institute (DCI), and a lecturer and adjunct professor at Stanford University. She leads the DCIX Longevity Innovation Special Interest Group focused on creating innovations and new business opportunities for longevity and healthy aging, and she serves as a lead mentor to the Techstars Future of Longevity Accelerator. Susan is also the author of Stage Not Age, How to Understand and Serve People Over 60, which focuses on the business opportunities and strategies to support longevity and healthy aging using life stage instead of a person's age. Susan co-developed a course offered at the Stanford Graduate School of Business on Longevity, for which a case study on iRelaunch was written. Susan is a relauncher, having taken a past career break of 15 years. Her pre-career break career was in venture capital. Listen to our wide ranging conversation on Susan's career path, her work as a longevity expert, and what living a longer life means for c

Amy Miller is a PR and communications expert who wrote to us a few months ago after relaunching her career following an eight year career break and a three year effort to relaunch. Despite doing all of the recommended steps to find a new job, she only got a couple of phone interviews and got to the point where she became so demoralized that she had to stop because she was becoming depressed. Things changed when Amy took a break from her job search, updated her skills, and made the decision to go into business for herself -- a decision which led to a new job opportunity. Today's episode is a rebroadcast of our prior conversation with Amy Miller, whose story is highlighted as part of our new mini-series, "Managing Through a Prolonged Job Search." Follow the link to hear other guests share their experiences and offer advice on managing a prolonged job search.

Alisha Fernandez Miranda is the author of My What If Year. Detailing her year of unpaid internships, the book follows Alisha on her quest to figure out what might have happened if her life had taken a different path. Alisha is also the host of Quit Your Day Job, a new podcast that takes listeners behind the scenes of her guests' dream jobs. Alisha is a Cuban-American, born and raised in Miami who has spent her adult life in New York and London. She is currently based in Scotland. Alisha is a graduate of Harvard University and the London School of Economics. In addition to being an intern, Alisha is the ex-CEO and current Chair at I.G. Advisors, a social impact intelligence agency that consults to the world’s biggest non-profits, companies and foundations on their philanthropy and social impact.

Today we are airing the audio version of our previously released video interview with Corey and LaBrena Settles, both military veterans who later relaunched their careers within a five year period; Corey after a 2 year career break for eldercare reasons and LaBrena after a 17-year career break focused primarily on childcare. We discuss how Corey and LaBrena coordinated the timing of their relaunches, what kinds of conversations they had leading up to their double relaunch, how it actually played out in real time and the ways Corey and LaBrena supported each other before, during and after their career breaks. We will also hear about the family sabbatical they took in Costa Rica. Join us for this rare opportunity to hear from one couple about their two relaunches.

"She could make anyone laugh and I wanted her to be paid for it. 'Mom, have you ever thought about being a stand-up comedian?' As she began dreaming of a comedy career, the reality of her current life as a stay-at-home mom sank in. She began to cry and told me it was too late for her. I could not bear to watch her struggle between ambition and doubt," wrote Zoya Garg, Zarna's daughter. Zarna Garg, an Indian immigrant, started her career as a lawyer and then spent 16 years as a stay-at-home mom. It was her kids who ultimately challenged her to go to an open mic night. That night changed her life and led her to success as a stand up comedian, finding her unique voice that relates to so many, especially women getting back into the workforce. Listen to Zarna’s inspiring and humorous story in this previously recorded session that was initially aired as part of the iRelaunch video series.