In this episode of Money Tales, our guest is Serene Lewis Lyles. What if retiring early isn’t just about having enough money, but about designing a life where time becomes your most valuable asset? Serene, a former Meta executive, shares how she planned her exit from a billion-dollar ad business to retire at age 52 and move to Portugal.

Serene Lewis Lyles is a designer. Over her nearly 30-year career, she designed digital products and marketing experiences for some of the world’s leading brands and organizations. Today, as founder of Ready to Retire Coaching, she helps people design their ideal retirement, with a focus on purpose, finances, and community.

After graduating from Northwestern University with a BS in Journalism, Serene started her career doing public relations for some of the world’s leading brands, including Nike, Procter & Gamble, and eBay. During this time, she helped launch Luna Bars, NikeTown SF and TiVo digital recording, which is the foundation for streaming programming.

Serene’s career has spanned products and services around the world. While living in England, she led communications for standardized education products for the University of Cambridge. After returning to the Bay Area, she drove 60% of client engagement as marketing lead for a biotech company. And, after taking a senior director role at Epsilon (now a part of Publicis Groupe), Serene grew their small content strategy service into a core offering that generated millions of dollars annually.

In 2019, Serene joined Facebook (now Meta). As a senior director, she led the 100-person content design team behind Facebook and Instagram’s $1billion ads business. At Meta, she was also a leader of the employee resource group Black@ Design and founder of the Black@ Content Design Leads group.

After retiring from Meta, Serene founded Ready to Retire coaching. When not coaching, Serene can be found on a vineyard in Portugal, where she moved in 2024 with her husband and their Rhodesian Ridgeback. Serene’s retirement plans include learning Portuguese, long lunches with friends and making leather goods for pets and people.