Fearless is not built by waiting until every step feels safe.

In this episode of Fearless Career Moves, Richa Bansal sits down with Rathi Gnanasekaran, a senior technical program manager, startup operator, entrepreneur, and former Fearless Hire client, to talk about reinvention, immigrant resilience, career confidence, and learning to take the next step before every answer is clear. Rathi shares how moving from India to Bahrain, then to Canada as a young international student, shaped the way she approaches risk, uncertainty, and first-time roles.

The conversation also covers what happens when a high-performing woman suddenly has to rebuild confidence after a layoff, why persistence matters in a difficult job market, and how community can change the actions someone takes. Richa and Rathi also talk about why leadership, job searching, and promotion conversations are all sales conversations, and how Rathi turned a career pause into the beginning of Lentl, her crunchy lentil seasoning brand. For women who are trying to pivot, recover their confidence, or take a new kind of risk, this episode is a practical reminder that confidence is built through action, not certainty.

Start listening and ask yourself where you might be waiting to feel fully ready. Tune in to the full episode of Every Role Is a First Time: Rebuilding Career Confidence After a Layoff with Rathi Gnanasekaran

Rathi Gnanasekaran is an accomplished Senior Technical Program Manager with deep expertise in program management, portfolio management, and engineering operations. She has worked across high-growth B2B FinTech startups and enterprise SaaS environments, leading complex initiatives in AI/ML, cloud infrastructure migration, scalable SDLC processes, and engineering operations. She is also the founder of Lentl, a crunchy lentil seasoning brand inspired by South Indian podi.

Shop Rati's crunchy lentil seasoning blends at www.lentl.co, with free shipping on orders over thirty dollars.

Know more about Lantl:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lentl.co

Tiktok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lentl.co

Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/07eigfs2a9c8m12xyi1ri2x3v31m3t/lentl-crunchy-lentil-seasoning/?invite_code=c8429693c7d84fb1bc264203b9c885ee&sender=1086001035052674329

Connect with Rathi:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rathi-gnanasekaran-41377bb/

Richa Bansal is the founder of Pinkcareers and host of the Fearless Career Moves Podcast. Through her signature program, The Fearless Hire, she helps ambitious women cut through the noise, clarify what they actually want, and step into high-impact leadership roles on their own terms.

Apply to The Fearless Hire at rise.pinkcareers.com/application-tfh, the career accelerator that's helped women in tech land $300k+ leadership offers.

Website: https://www.pinkcareers.com/

LinkedIn (Richa): https://www.linkedin.com/in/richabansal10/

Instagram (Richa): https://www.instagram.com/careersbyrichabansal/

#FearlessCareerMoves #WomenInLeadership #CareerConfidence #CareerGrowth #CareerReinvention

Executive presence is not just how someone sounds in the room. It starts with whether they have given themselves permission to be there.

In this episode of Fearless Career Moves, Richa Bansal sits down with Colin Boyd, communication and business coach, author of One Presentation Away, and host of The Expert Edge Podcast, for a practical conversation on executive presence, storytelling, and taking up space in high-stakes rooms. Colin explains why presence begins with being present, how grounding changes the way someone shows up, and why the best communicators do not rush to prove themselves.

They also talk about the communication shifts ambitious women need in interviews, promotion conversations, presentations, and senior leadership rooms, from using stories and case studies to show expertise, to slowing down, using body language with intention, handling dominant personalities, and deciding not to wait for someone else to "knight" them as a leader.

Start listening and ask yourself whether you've truly given yourself permission to take up space. Tune in to the full episode of How to Build Executive Presence in High-Stakes Conversations with Colin Boyd.

Colin Boyd is a communication and business coach who helps experts, coaches, and speakers sell and command the stage on virtual and live platforms. He is the author of One Presentation Away: Become an Irresistible Speaker and Convert More Clients, published by Wiley, distilling over 17 years of experience as a professional speaker and coach. Colin also hosts The Expert Edge Podcast, where he explores influence, persuasion, and communication with leading industry experts, and created The Conversion Story Formula™, a framework for connecting with audiences and filling programs through storytelling.

Grab Colin's book, One Presentation Away, on Amazon [https://www.amazon.com/One-Presentation-Away-Irresistible-Speaker/dp/1394324316] his step-by-step framework for becoming an irresistible speaker who connects, captivates, and converts without feeling salesy.

Connect with Colin Boyd:

Website: https://colinboyd.co/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/colinboyd/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/colinboyd/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/colinboydglobal/

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/user/colinboydcoach1

X: https://x.com/colingboyd

Richa Bansal is the founder of Pinkcareers and host of the Fearless Career Moves Podcast. Through her signature program, The Fearless Hire, she helps ambitious women cut through the noise, clarify what they actually want, and step into high-impact leadership roles on their own terms.

Website: https://www.pinkcareers.com/

LinkedIn (Richa): https://www.linkedin.com/in/richabansal10/

Apply for The Fearless Hire: https://rise.pinkcareers.com/application-tfh

Instagram (Richa): https://www.instagram.com/careersbyrichabansal/

#FearlessCareerMoves #ExecutivePresence #WomenInLeadership #CommunicationSkills #LeadershipPresence #CareerGrowth #OwnTheRoom #TakeUpSpace #SpeakWithConfidence #CareerConfidence

The strongest interview answers do not just explain what happened. They show why the problem mattered and why the candidate was the leader who could solve it.

In this solo episode of Fearless Career Moves, Richa Bansal breaks down her SOARR storytelling framework for answering behavioral interview questions, especially for women targeting senior IC, manager, staff, director, VP, and other leadership roles. She explains why the popular STAR technique can fall short, how it can lead candidates to over-explain details, bury the real business challenge, and miss the opportunity to show leadership maturity.

Richa walks through each part of SOARR: Situation, Obstacle, Actions, Results, and Reflection. She shows how candidates can organize their stories with stronger business context, clearer stakes, measurable impact, and a reflection that demonstrates maturity. This episode is especially useful for ambitious women preparing for interviews, internal promotions, networking conversations, resume updates, and salary negotiations.

Start listening and ask yourself whether your interview stories are showing what you did, or why it mattered. Tune in to the full episode of Fearless Career Moves: How to Ace Your Next Job Interview Using the Proprietary SOARR Storytelling Framework

Richa Bansal is the founder of Pinkcareers and host of the Fearless Career Moves Podcast. Through her signature program, The Fearless Hire, she helps ambitious women cut through the noise, clarify what they actually want, and step into high-impact leadership roles on their own terms.

Website: https://www.pinkcareers.com/

LinkedIn (Richa): https://www.linkedin.com/in/richabansal10/

The Fearless Hire: https://rise.pinkcareers.com/application-tfh

Instagram (Richa): https://www.instagram.com/careersbyrichabansal/

#FearlessCareerMoves #InterviewTips #JobSearch #CareerGrowth #CareerConfidence #WomenInLeadership #BehavioralInterview #SOARRMethod

Motherhood should not be treated as a reason for ambitious women to shrink.

In this episode of Fearless Career Moves, Richa Bansal sits down with Nikita Kawdiya, a product leader and former Fearless Hire client, to talk about ambition after motherhood, self-promotion, leadership language, support systems, and getting comfortable talking about the business impact behind your work. Nikita shares what it felt like to be told she might need to take a step down after becoming a mother, why she refused to let that define her next move, and how she learned to own the big numbers behind her product leadership.

The conversation also covers how women can stop reducing their work to task lists, start connecting their impact to dollars and outcomes, negotiate with more confidence, and replace default apologies with stronger language. For women who are tired of being capable but under-credited, this episode is a practical reminder that owning your value is not bragging. It is leadership.

Start listening and ask yourself where you might be underselling your own impact. Tune in to the full episode of Motherhood Is Not A Step Down: Owning Your Ambition After Becoming A Mom with Nikita Kawdiya

Nikita Kawdiya is a Director of Product with 16+ years of experience leading CX-driven transformations, defining product vision, leading high-performing teams, and managing $20M+ annual budgets across Fortune 100 FinTech and Digital Banking organisations, including Prudential Financial and Citibank. She has led 0 to 1 product launches, scaled platforms to 1M users, and delivered measurable customer and business impact across mobile, web, B2C, B2B, and B2B2C SaaS environments.

Connect with Nikita:

Li: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nikitakawdiya/

Richa Bansal is the founder of Pinkcareers and host of the Fearless Career Moves Podcast. Through her signature program, The Fearless Hire, she helps ambitious women cut through the noise, clarify what they actually want, and step into high-impact leadership roles on their own terms.

Website: https://www.pinkcareers.com/

LinkedIn (Richa): https://www.linkedin.com/in/richabansal10/

The Fearless Hire: https://www.pinkcareers.com/

Instagram (Richa): https://www.instagram.com/careersbyrichabansal/

#FearlessCareerMoves #WomenInLeadership #CareerConfidence #WorkingMoms #SelfAdvocacy

High-performing women are often told they are doing great, but doing great is not always what gets them promoted.

In this solo episode of Fearless Career Moves, Richa Bansal breaks down why ambitious women in tech can have the experience, education, expertise, and strong performance reviews, and still get overlooked for promotion. She explains why hard work often leads to more work instead of more power, why promotion decisions are grounded in business impact, and why a direct manager liking someone is not the same as having the right sponsors in the room.

Richa also shares tactical ways to stop waiting for recognition and start building a stronger promotion case. From creating an impact tracker to using the SOARR storytelling formula, connecting work to leadership priorities, and knowing market worth before it is needed, this episode gives ambitious women practical tools to be seen as ready for the next level.

Start listening and ask yourself whether your work is being seen as leadership-ready work. Tune in to the full episode of Why High-Performing Women Still Get Overlooked For Promotion.

Richa Bansal is the founder of Pinkcareers and host of the Fearless Career Moves Podcast. Through her signature program, The Fearless Hire, she helps ambitious women cut through the noise, clarify what they actually want, and step into high-impact leadership roles on their own terms.

Website: https://www.pinkcareers.com/

LinkedIn (Richa): https://www.linkedin.com/in/richabansal10/

The Fearless Hire: https://www.pinkcareers.com/

Instagram (Richa): https://www.instagram.com/careersbyrichabansal/

#FearlessCareerMoves #WomenInLeadership #CareerGrowth #CareerOwnership #KnowYourWorth

AI is changing product management fast, but not every PM needs to panic, pivot, or chase the same role.

In this episode of Fearless Career Moves, I sit down with Aakash Gupta, also known as the AIPM guy, to talk about what product managers actually need to do to stay relevant as AI changes the role. Aakash is a product and growth leader who has led teams at thredUP, Affirm, and Apollo.io, and he now writes Product Growth and AI by Aakash, hosts The Growth Podcast, and helps product managers break into AI PM.

We get practical about what AI PM really means, why every PM needs to understand both AI productivity and AI feature building, and how to build credible AI experience even when your current product does not have AI work. Aakash breaks down courses, certificates, side projects, candidate market fit, niche positioning, LinkedIn strategy, and how to show proof in interviews instead of relying on polished talking points.

Start listening and ask yourself where your next career move needs more strategy, more proof, and less panic. Tune in to the full episode of How Product Managers Can Stay Relevant in the AI Era.

Aakash Gupta is a product and growth leader who has led growth and product work at thredUP, Affirm, and Apollo.io. He writes Product Growth, hosts The Growth Podcast, and runs Land a PM Job, a live cohort for product managers looking to break into AI PM and future-proof their careers. If you're a product manager ready to make that move, connect with him on LinkedIn or follow his newsletter at product-growth.com for practical advice on building AI skills and shipping real product value.

Richa Bansal is the founder of Pinkcareers and host of the Fearless Career Moves Podcast. Through her signature program, The Fearless Hire, she helps ambitious women cut through the noise, clarify what they actually want, and step into high-impact leadership roles on their own terms.

Website: https://www.pinkcareers.com/

LinkedIn (Richa): https://www.linkedin.com/in/richabansal10/

The Fearless Hire: https://www.pinkcareers.com/

Instagram (Richa): https://www.instagram.com/careersbyrichabansal/

#FearlessCareerMoves #ProductManagement #AIProductManagement #WomenInTech #CareerGrowth

Some of the most ambitious women carry the heaviest invisible loads, and the world keeps telling them the answer is to want less.

In this episode of Fearless Career Moves, I sit down with my longtime friend Anjali Goyal, Amazon leader, former startup operator, and mother of two, to talk about what it actually takes to build a thriving career across four countries while raising a son on the autism spectrum. Anjali shares the moment her husband said "one of us needs to leave our job" and what she heard versus what he actually said, the years of unsolicited advice pointed squarely at her working, and the conscious two-decade negotiation she and her partner have made to take turns at intensity without either one giving up on ambition.

We also get honest about the noise, LinkedIn comparisons, well-meaning relatives, cultural expectations, and how women can stop being victims of the situation and start making conscious choices they don't resent. Anjali's belief is simple: you can have it all, but with the right support structure in place. The work is knowing what you actually want, and trusting yourself enough to negotiate for it.

Start listening and ask yourself where the noise might be drowning out what you actually want. Tune in to the full episode of Redefining "Having It All": Career, Motherhood & Raising a Neurodivergent Child.

Anjali Goyal is a product leader at Amazon with an entrepreneurial journey that spans remote desert oilfields, Indian startups, and Silicon Valley. As a mother of two, her greatest inspiration is her 13-year-old autistic son, who constantly redefines how she approaches creative problem-solving and innovation. Blending her tech leadership with her personal passion, Anjali recently launched https://uniquebrains.org/, a learning platform designed to empower neurodiverse children and their families.

Richa Bansal is the founder of Pinkcareers and host of the Fearless Career Moves Podcast. Through her signature program, The Fearless Hire, she helps ambitious women cut through the noise, clarify what they actually want, and step into high-impact leadership roles on their own terms.

Website: https://www.pinkcareers.com/

LinkedIn (Richa): https://www.linkedin.com/in/richabansal10/

The Fearless Hire: https://www.pinkcareers.com/

Instagram (Richa): https://www.instagram.com/careersbyrichabansal/

#FearlessCareerMoves #WomenInLeadership #WorkingMoms #HavingItAll #CareerCoaching

Did you know that up to 75% of resumes never make it past the ATS? In this episode, career coach Richa Bansal breaks down exactly how Applicant Tracking Systems work—and why understanding them is critical to landing interviews.

Through the real-life story of Maya, a senior program manager who transformed her job search by optimizing her resume, Richa shares five essential rules to make your resume both ATS- and recruiter-friendly. Learn how to simplify formatting, use strategic keywords, avoid common mistakes, and position yourself for success in today's competitive job market.

Whether you're actively job hunting or simply want to future-proof your resume, this episode is packed with insights you can't afford to miss.

Hit the "Follow" button so you don't miss an episode!

Love this podcast? Write a review and give it a 5-star rating!

Connect with Richa:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/richabansal10/

https://www.instagram.com/pinkcareers_/

https://www.facebook.com/pinkcareers

Apply for Personalized Coaching

Visit THE FEARLESS HIRE Application and sign up for The Fearless Hire: A proven step-by-step process to help you go from being undervalued to in-demand and command $200K - $500K dream offers.

In this heartfelt and unflinchingly honest conversation, Fearless Career Moves host Richa Bansal sits down with Itishree Swain—a marketing executive, first-gen immigrant, and mother—to explore what it truly means to build a resilient, values-aligned career in today's fast-paced world.

Together, they unpack the realities that ambitious professionals rarely talk about: the unspoken hustle culture among immigrants, the fear that comes with visa-based job insecurity, and the pressure to prove yourself while parenting and pivoting.

But this episode goes beyond job titles and cultural expectations.

Richa and Itishree explore how strategic visibility—not just hard work—is key to sustainable career growth. They share how to navigate intentional career breaks, overcome the stigma attached to them, and show up powerfully as both professionals and parents. With moments of humor, clarity, and raw reflection, this episode is a reminder that you are more than your job—and your story is still being written.

If you've ever questioned your worth during a transition, or wondered how to make space for ambition and joy, this one's for you.

The views and opinions shared by our guest, are their own and do not reflect those of any organizations, employers, or associations they are affiliated with. All insights are shared in a personal capacity.

Hit the "Follow" button so you don't miss an episode!

Love this podcast? Write a review and give it a 5-star rating!

Connect with Richa:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/richabansal10/

https://www.instagram.com/pinkcareers_/

https://www.facebook.com/pinkcareers

Apply for Personalized Coaching

Visit www.pinkcareers.com and sign up for The Fearless Hire: A proven step-by-step process to help you go from being undervalued to in-demand and command $200K - $500K dream offers.

Connect with our Guest

With over 12 years of experience across media agencies and ad-tech platforms like Meta and Impact Tech, Itishree brings deep expertise in marketing strategy, measurement, and cross-channel growth. As an immigrant and working mom, she offers a unique lens that blends data-driven impact with lived experience. https://www.linkedin.com/in/itishreeswain/

In this honest and energizing conversation, The Fearless Career Moves Podcast host Richa Bansal sits down with Alan Stein—former Google executive and CEO of Kadima Careers—to pull back the curtain on what's really holding ambitious professionals back in today's job market.

Together, they dive into the harsh realities of modern hiring: why qualified candidates get ghosted, how bias creeps into every stage of the recruitment process, and what you can actually do to turn things around.

But this episode goes beyond résumés and salary bumps.

Richa and Alan explore the pivotal role that relationships and networking play in propelling your career forward. Discover how building genuine connections can open doors, foster personal growth, and completely transform your professional path. Packed with real-life stories and hard-earned wisdom, this episode is a must-listen if you're ready to stop waiting for permission and start taking control of your career.

The views and opinions shared by our guest, are their own and do not reflect those of any organizations, employers, or associations they are affiliated with. All insights are shared in a personal capacity.

Hit the "Follow" button so you don't miss an episode!

Love this podcast? Write a review and give it a 5-star rating!

Connect with Richa:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/richabansal10/

https://www.instagram.com/pinkcareers_/

https://www.facebook.com/pinkcareers

Apply for Personalized Coaching

Visit www.pinkcareers.com and sign up for The Fearless Hire: A proven step-by-step process to help you go from being undervalued to in-demand and command $200K - $500K dream offers.

Connect with our Guest

Alan Stein is the Founder & CEO of Kadima Careers, on a mission to accelerate 1 million careers by 2040. A former Google "Manager of the Year," he's led global teams at Meta, Salesforce, and American Express—and now empowers professionals to land top-tier roles and build generational wealth. https://www.linkedin.com/in/ownyourcareer/ https://www.kadimacareers.com