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 work after a career break.

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.