We're off traveling! 

Join us in this week's episodes as we share our exciting plans to take an extended travel break away from life in the UK.  While this will be the last episode we'll be releasing for a few months, we're excited to share with you:

- Our motivations to independently embark on these journeys
- Our travel plans and how we financially planned for this break
- What we hope to learn and experience during our travels

P.S. We've already been travelling for a few months, so we'll be back before you know it! 

When you think of a trustee, what do you think of? Is it a white guy in his 60s?

Whilst boards aren't particularly diverse today, this is changing and they need YOUR voice. In this week’s episode, we are delighted to talk to Shirin Shah about her experience as a trustee on the board of a charity, including the impact she has been able to have and what she has learned in the process. We cover:

- Why you would join a board
- What qualifications you need 
- Diversity on boards 
- Building skills and owning your opinions
- Imposter syndrome 
- Transferable skills that make you an asset to a board 
- Building confidence via a trustee role
- Things to think about before signing up 
- Where to find roles 

Unsurprisingly, finances probably aren’t top of you list of things you think about the moment you get engaged, nor should they be! But once you’ve done plenty of celebrating, planning a wedding can often come with quite a price tag, and the financial implications are worth putting some thought to. In this episode we sit down with our friend Lou and have a big debrief on the way we each planned financially for our own weddings, and top tips including:

• How we approached planning financially for our weddings
• Any strategies for saving in advance
• Largest expenses
• How to choose where to prioritise and what made the biggest impact on the day
• Where you can cut costs with low impact
• Things we’re very glad we did and things we would have done differently
• Communicating with your fiancé on this topic

In today’s episode of Career Crossroads we are joined by Teena Alimchandhani, a Communications & Change Management Consultant at Willis Towers Watson.

Teena provides valuable insights into this exciting career path, covering a range of topics including: 

- What consulting entails, and why she chose consulting as a career
- The essential skills needed to excel in this field
- What Teena likes and dislikes about consulting, and an honest insight into the profession
- Teena’s personal definition of success as a change management consultant
- Valuable advice on how to break into the industry, both as a graduate and an experienced hire

This episode is part of the Career Crossroads sub-series where we delve into all things careers and career change, bringing to light what people actually do day to day in their roles, what skills you need, how to break into the industry at a later stage, salaries, long term prospects, and lots more.

Do you ever get tired of the nagging voice in your head that tells you you’re not good/smart/attractive enough? That you shouldn’t speak up in that meeting and couldn’t possibly put yourself forward for promotion? This devil on your shoulder is your inner critic, and despite what it tells you (and actually being designed to protect you), it’s not always right and may be holding you back. 

In today’s episode we discuss our inner critics and how to manage them with Molly Taylor, founder and CEO of Famn, a coaching business with a psychologically grounded approach to their coaching practice. Molly also leads a second business, F*ck Off Russell, which specifically focuses on managing your inner critic.
 
In this episode we discuss:
- What is your inner critic and why do we have them?
- Molly's experience with her own inner critic
- How our childhoods impact what our inner critic says to us
- How our autonomic nervous system impacts us and our ability to manage our inner critic 
- Why going hard at the gym may not always be the best way to combat stress
- Comparison and social media
- Tools to quieten your inner critic

Check out Famn and F**k Off Rusell to find out more.

In this episode of Career Crossroads, we are delighted to be talking to our very own Shreenidhi Subramanian about what it means to be a product manager. We delve into:
 
- What actually is a product manager
- The key skills needed and how transferable they are
- Why data is key, and helps with imposter syndrome
- Taking people on the journey
- Leaning into your strengths vs dwelling on your weaknesses
- Defining success
- Managing work life balance
- What to expect at an interview
- Salary expectations
- Progression and exit opportunities ­­­
- How to break into the role, and further resources

This episode is part of the Career Crossroads sub-series where we delve into all things careers and career change, bringing to light what people actually do day to day in their roles, what skills you need, how to break into the industry at a later stage, salaries, long term prospects, and lots more.

Get ready to be inspired in this episode of On The Money! 

We're joined by Teena Alimchandhani, who takes us through her journey with TeenaTeaches, a South Asian wedding dance business that she balances alongside her career in consulting. Discover the motivations that sparked Teena's entrepreneurial spirit and learn how she overcame challenges to create her own success story.

In this episode, we cover:

- Teena's leap into entrepreneurship and what drove her to make that first move
- The evolving path of TeenaTeaches, from its inception to a steadily growing customer base
- The delicate art of managing limited capacity while juggling work, personal time, and maintaining balance
- Teena's insights into finding motivation, dealing with challenges, and the financial considerations of a side hustle

Career paths today don't look like they once did, with linear, corporate careers no longer the default expectation and many people increasingly considering entrepreneurship as an option. But despite everyone you know having a business idea (including you), very few people take the necessary steps to turn that idea into a reality, let alone a success. In this episode we sit down with Molly Taylor, founder and CEO of coaching business Famn, to discuss her journey to starting a business in her twenties. We discuss:
 
- First steps to bring a business idea to fruition
- Managing dynamics when working with family 
- The value of coaching and democratising access to it
- Pivoting from your initial idea 
- How to know what you don't know and identify your blind spots 
- Hiring 
- The challenges and benefits of leading a business in your twenties

This episode is part of the Career Crossroads sub-series where we delve into all things careers and career change, bringing to light what people actually do day to day in their roles, what skills you need, how to break into the industry at a later stage, salaries, long term prospects, and lots more.

Money can be deeply personal and something we deal with in private for much of our lives. But living with someone else, whether it be a friend or a partner, means you have to work together to manage your joint finances in some form or another. Beyond the pure financials there are also plenty of other considerations to make when sharing money or a living space with a friend or a loved one. Almost all young people will do this and very few give it conscious thought. It can often be a source of friction - but it doesn't have to be. In this episode we discuss the key things you should be thinking about and discussing together to maintain a healthy approach to cohabiting and joint financial planning.
 
Whether you're living with friends or a partner, we've got you covered. We discuss:
 
Housemates
- What should you be thinking about when you move out for the first time?
- What bills do you have to pay?
- How can you approach difficult conversations on joint financial issues? (e.g. how to discuss bills and rent with your housemates whilst keeping your friendships intact)
- How do you budget for house bills?
- Should you get a joint account with your housemates? (And crucially, how to avoid it impacting your finances 10 years later…)
 
Partners
- How to talk about joint financial goals with your partner
- What if they're different to your goals?
- What shapes our attitudes to finances?
- Considerations for buying property together
- The different options for splitting your finances 

In today’s episode of ‘Career Crossroads’ we are delighted to be joined by Shirin Shah, Legal Counsel at Exscientia, a biotech company at the forefront of AI drug discovery.

Shirin shares with us: 

- Her personal journey into law, through working for a law firm and then choosing to move to an in-house role at Exscientia
- The differences between in-house law and working in a law firm, including the varying nature of the day-to-day work, demands, and lifestyle
- The impact of company size on the type of work you do as an in-house lawyer, comparing the dynamic responsibilities of setting up the legal function in a smaller startup to the specialized focus on technical law details in larger organizations
- Her insights on the process of getting into a career in law

This episode is part of the Career Crossroads sub-series where we delve into all things careers and career change, bringing to light what people actually do day to day in their roles, what skills you need, how to break into the industry at a later stage, salaries, long term prospects, and lots more.