3,2,1 Irelaunch

Cedric Layton is the Global ReEntry Program Co-Ordinator at J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., responsible for all facets of their long running, rapidly growing, global career ReEntry Program - including all executive champions, managers, other internal stakeholders and especially the relauncher "Fellows" themselves. We discuss what to expect when applying to and participating in the ReEntry Program, and the major features of the program. The ReEntry Program is one of the oldest career reentry programs, having launched in 2013. Fellows from the earliest cohorts are now senior enough to be managing the newest participants, something we could only dream about back in 2007 when iRelaunch was founded.

Betsy began her career as an occupational therapist before making a career shift into sales and ultimately into pharmaceutical sales. After taking a career break to raise her three children, Betsy discovered her passion for organizing, rearranging, and re-doing furniture and decor. She began in her own home and soon was getting requests to do the same at her friends’ homes. After discovering there was actually a professional name for her work - "staging"- she pursued a home staging certificate and subsequently launched her real estate residential staging company, PorchLight Home Staging. We speak with Betsy about her career shifts, finding her passion, the importance of upskilling, and hear Betsy’s valuable advice on entrepreneurship.

Market researcher Prabha Kannan took a seven-year career break before relaunching at Apple, ultimately as the Managing Editor for Siri – which means, as Prabha describes, “head writer and character lead for Siri”. After four years in this role, Prabha published a LinkedIn post that went viral, talking about her decision to take a second career break. This post has over 95,000 reactions, 2,000 comments and more than 1,500 shares. She was also recently featured in a Business Insider article writing about her career journey. We will discuss how Prabha relaunched her career at Apple, how she progressed once there, and hear more about her decision to take a second career break and write about it.

Elizabeth Bader was a Team Effectiveness Coach at Red Hat at the time of this recording and has since been promoted to North American Regional Advocate in Sales! Over the course of her career, Elizabeth has taken three career breaks – one to obtain a Master’s Degree in Organizational Leadership, one to start her own company, and one for family care. This year, she is celebrating the twenty-second anniversary of her first return to work. In this episode, we will discuss lessons learned by Elizabeth during her career breaks, the importance of professional development, and tips on how to handle restarting in a new location where you don’t know anyone.

At the time of this podcast recording, Mariany Polanco-Cruz was a Vice President on the Global Diversity Recruiting Team at Goldman Sachs. She discusses the recent innovations to the Goldman Sachs Returnship program which was completely overhauled, as well as last Fall’s newly-introduced COVID-19 Career Relaunch Initiative. Mariany describes who is eligible, including important guidance for interested applicants who are unsure whether they meet eligibility requirements, and what the application process looks like. She also discusses the key role that Goldman’s community of relaunchers have played since the first returnship cohort began in 2008. Applications are currently closed but interested relaunchers can learn more at https://www.goldmansachs.com/careers/professionals/returnship/

Richard Eisenberg was, until recently, the Managing Editor of Next Avenue, the PBS’s website for people 50+, and the editor of the site's Money & Policy and Work & Purpose channels. Richard was a previous guest for Episode 197 of the 3,2,1 iRelaunch podcast, when we discussed career progression trends for the 50+ worker, how COVID impacted those trends, and his predictions about what working behaviors will look like post-COVID. Since that conversation, Richard has retired from Next Avenue to start his "unretirement." In this episode, we ask him to turn the lens on himself and discuss his personal career journey, his thought process and expectations for this phase of his life and career, what “unretirement" looks like for him and some advice on how others might navigate it as well.

Relauncher Nuala Murphy is a professional marketer, entrepreneur, community builder and connector. As a marketer she has worked with some of Northern Ireland's most successful companies internationally, selling and marketing products, services and technology across many industries for 15+ years. As President of the Lean In network in Belfast, Nuala has led and scaled the Lean In movement across Ireland over the past nearly 8 years and she spent three years launching a company with a health tech solution offering early intervention to pre and post natal depressions. These pursuits overlapped with a 7 year career break. As interim head of business at Diversity Mark, Nuala is channeling her expertise, leadership and passion into building a more equal and inclusive society working with companies from all sectors across Ireland and the UK.

Shay Baker is Program Manager of Return Utah, Utah’s career reentry program. Utah is the first state to launch a career reentry program. Shay was a participant in the inaugural cohort of Return Utah that launched in fall 2021, and was subsequently hired to run the program. The second cohort launched in January with almost three times as many participants as the first. Shay is a relauncher herself, leaving her career as a reporter and producer for KTVX, the Salt Lake City ABC affiliate TV station, for what turned out to be an eight year career break. In this episode, Shay shares the unique and varied scope of the Return Utah program, her mandate to grow the program, and her future vision for it.

Bef Ayenew is Director of Engineering at LinkedIn where he leads the Search and Profile engineering teams focused on helping LinkedIn members express their professional identity. In this special edition of our podcast, Bef announces the launching of the significant, new LinkedIn profile feature that is particularly relevant to relaunchers, the career break designation. Now, a career break can be presented as an integral part of members’ profiles, as any job listing would, with opportunities to explain and list pertinent efforts during that time. Listen in as Bef explains the background, evolution and impact of this brand new profile feature, and how best to utilize it.

Marion Viray is Program Manager of the Technology Leadership Development Program at Baruch College and Advisor for the Starr Career Development Program. Marion moderated our Successful Relaunchers Panel at the October 2021 iRelaunch Return to Work Conference. Marion stepped away from full-time employment to focus on childcare. In the years since, he has held a variety of freelance, adjunct, and part-time positions in higher education, many of which focus on career counseling. In this episode, Marion talks about these roles and his experience relaunching in higher education and career counseling.

Alex Mooney is Sr. Manager of DEI Talent Acquisition Programs and a 12 year Amazonian serving in increasingly senior HR roles, most recently in innovative talent pipelines and DEI talent acquisition. He is the founder of the Amazon Returnship Program and leads other global talent acquisition programs. Under Alex’s leadership, Amazon Returnship has committed to hiring 1,000 returners over the next few years. Join us as Alex describes the features of Amazon Returnship and shares excellent tips on how to frame the career break in an interview.

Nadia Gil is Head of Business Strategy at Google Cloud, where she is responsible for developing international strategic planning and transforming the operations for Google Cloud's cyber security products. Nadia has over 20 years of experience in strategic transformation and operations with a specialty in strategic planning, mergers and acquisitions (M&A), and integrations. She has an MBA from The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania. After the births of her each of children, Nadia considered taking a career break, but ultimately opted to remain in the workforce on her own terms by redirecting her experience and transferrable skills into new roles. We speak with Nadia today about her process of reinventing her career path to accommodate her changing priorities, and what that looks like today. CFC & Nadia Gil approved 1/31/2022 Short Description for Social Media Platforms (FB and IG): Nadia Gil is Head of Business Strategy at Google Cloud, where she is responsible for developing international strategi

EP 224: How Networking Makes the Difference Relaunching to a Senior Role, with Mary Catherine Malley by iRelaunch

EP 223: Using Salesforce to Career Transition after a 20-Year Career Break, with Kati Koenig by iRelaunch

Sirisha Kuchimanchi is a Global Engineering & Manufacturing Executive with Texas Instruments, as well as a podcast host. Sirisha took two career breaks in less than eight years, during which time she raised her family and earned her doctorate in Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University. Sirisha hosts the podcast "Women, Career and Life" and works in the tech industry, where she leads teams, drives change, and supports customers. In this episode, we talk about what she learned during her career breaks and how she relaunched at her pre-career break employer.

Lisa Fain is the CEO at the Center for Mentoring Excellence. She speaks with Carol all about mentoring and the role mentoring and being mentored can have in a relaunch, and once back to work. They discuss the “growth mindset” and the idea of “becoming” vs the “fixed mindset," why you don’t have to “have all the answers” to be an effective mentor, and how the best mentoring relationships are enabling instead of dependent. Fun fact: Lisa Fain’s mother, Lois Zachary, the founder of the Center for Mentoring Excellence is a relauncher! When Lisa was in middle school, her mother went back to school for a PhD and founded the Center subsequently. Today is a rebroadcast of an earlier podcast in honor of January designated as National Mentoring Month.

Elisabeth Galvin is a content editor at Diversity Network, an organization committed to equality, diversity and inclusion and creating a better workplace for all. We met Elisabeth when she invited Carol Fishman Cohen to join her in a fireside chat session at Diversity Network’s Inclusion 2021 virtual conference. Elisabeth has worked as a journalist and author in the US, London, Australia and Hong Kong and took a nine-year career break during which time she was a freelance writer and editor. Elisabeth discusses how she got her freelance jobs and expanded her network so that she could write for a range of magazines and newspapers. She also talks about her recent relaunch, how she overcame some initial challenges during her transition, and the work she does at Diversity network. (Shoutout to Loralee Hamilton of Oracle at timestamp 17:04)

Hear the “Best Piece of Advice” from ten episodes of the 3,2,1 iRelaunch podcast series: Author Laura Zigman explains how to move forward through life’s most challenging time; Learn about angel investing and if it’s right for you with Nicole Cuellar-Lopez; Kathryn Troutman gives guidance on applying for jobs with the federal government; Dr. Ella Washington discusses how to have difficult and meaningful discussions with your team; LinkedIn Learning instructor Selena Rezvani explains how to have better executive presence; NY Times bestselling author Lindsey Pollak discusses navigating work in a virtual world; David Boehmer, founder of Banff Advisors, gives an insider’s view into executive search; Gabriella Bean and Sue Spillane rebounded from lengthy career breaks into high level engineering careers; Shannon Tymosko and Darci Spiteri as they explain their journey as women in the electrical trade; Parent educator Katherine Reynolds Lewis discusses how to involve your kids in your job search and relaunch transi

Sarah DeLadurantey supports General Motor’s Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion as a Talent Strategist for DEI Workforce Design. She is the program manager for Take 2, GM’s career reentry program, and led its recent transformation from a returnship to a direct-hire model. Sarah discusses how the Take 2 program has evolved and provides helpful guidance on how to answer an often-asked pre-screening question about whether an applicant has taken a career break. She also shares what the application process looks like, what to expect during the interview process, and gives specific tips on how to prepare for interviews. Roles for the Take 2 program are currently closed, but are expected to re-open in the first quarter of 2022. Check GM's website at https://search-careers.gm.com/mentorshipandgrowth for updates on opportunities.

Sydney Finkelstein is the Steven Roth Professor of Management at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College. He has published 25 books and 90 articles, including the bestsellers Why Smart Executives Fail and Superbosses: How Exceptional Leaders Master the Flow of Talent. Syd also hosts his own podcast, The Sydcast, to share stories of people in business, sports, entertainment, politics, academia, and everyday life (Carol Fishman Cohen was a recent guest!). Syd defines what a superboss is, the unique traits of a superboss, why you want to work for one, and the specific questions to ask when interviewing to determine if your prospective boss is a superboss. He also shares his thoughts on the four characteristics of a great job and why these are so important for relaunchers. https://thesydcast.com/