Career Transition

The hero’s journey

How do you face your toughest career transition yet, and at the senior executive level?  Especially if you’re a successful woman up against additional challenges, like country relocation and/or balancing your dual roles of businesswoman and mother?

Three successful women senior executives, working in three different global companies, industries, and countries, each came to us with the same challenge.  We helped these already emotionally intelligent, successful leaders of other people find new inspiration and clarity for themselves that took them way beyond what the rest of their world expected of them to new professional success and fulfilment that’s more aligned with their talent, passion, and creativity, and making their work-life balance seamless.

Embracing the unknown and personal happiness

The unexpected job loss as an ex-pat meant I had to make an immediate decision about staying in Barcelona or returning to the US.  I had no idea what I wanted in regard to work, but knew that I needed a change that would make me healthier, both physically and spiritually.  I also wanted to discover what would make me happiest in my next chapter of my life.  I accepted moving into the “unknown” through the coaching process with Cynthia.  This was big for me.

Cynthia is incredibly intuitive and understood what makes me tick spiritually, intellectually, and professionally. The coaching helped me understand, embrace, and integrate all the various parts of myself; self-worth and work-life balance have been key areas of improvement too.  A big moment was when I decided not to continue the interview process for a job that originally seemed very appealing to me, because it wasn’t aligned with my values.  I could let my own happiness take precedence.

Cynthia is fearless in her ability to understand what needs to be explored and brought forth in the moment. Since day one, I had the sense that she practices from a base of professional and personal experience that is wide and deep.  I felt trust in this process largely due to her humaneness and her level of professionalism.   Her spirituality and sense of well being comes through and encouraged me to reach for the same.

She helped me to move forward through a transition that was difficult and outright disabling at times.  Through our coaching relationship I’ve discovered the ability to see myself as a whole person, not just as an executive.  Where it’s most important to me, I’m able now to take stock of my life and measure my happiness by my own criteria.  I’ve definitely come a long way in being able to clearly see a whole picture – not just about work.  This is a huge shift for me.

Doreen Sardilli, VP, Allscripts

Reclaiming well-being and the creative self

After spending most of my adult years achieving high career success, an assignment abroad woke me up to how much I wanted a more creative and fulfilling way of making a living, as well as more work-life balance.

Through the coaching process with Cynthia, I owned up to my deepest personal and professional priorities and courageously began to take major steps to start living them and keep them much more aligned. Cynthia’s ability to help me see things from other perspectives, her methods for releasing blocks from the past in order to move forward, having her to hold me accountable so I would get things done instead of putting them off–all this helped me get important clarity, get focused, and take action.

I’ve found myself a much more satisfying executive management position, have learned to make my personal well-being a priority, and am back to my music again–producing a CD and forming a media and record company along the way.

I valued Cynthia’s years of international experience–not just as a coach, but as someone who knows what’s it’s like to work in real companies; someone who can truly understand the trials and tribulations of managing globally across different organisational roles, structures, and cultures.  And I preferred having a coach who’s not 20 years younger than me!

Josephine Jagielo, VP, Transparency Rights Management

Unlocking strengths and values

After executive management roles at both Microsoft and DANONE, I found myself in an unplanned career transition in a new country where my husband had just been relocated professionally.  Being a mother to a small child, along with the challenges of adjusting to a new culture where I didn’t speak the language yet, added to my sense of professional identity crisis.

I started coaching with Cynthia to understand and re-evaluate what I’d most like to do in my life professionally, and to get support in exploring a move from working for corporations to running my own business.

At the beginning of the process, I felt so vague and uncertain, and the coaching helped me feel a lot more supported and comfortable in dealing with all my questions and challenges during that time. The standouts included my 360-feedback process and opening my eyes to my strengths and talent, which gave me a lot of self-confidence thanks to the way Cynthia framed the process. Our focus on values was also key, helping me identify more clearly what matters most to me, which helps a lot in any decision- making process now.

As Cynthia and I continued to work together, I got more clarity and my business plan began to take shape and become a reality.  Now my own business clients comment on how my work with them is transforming their lives, just as working with Cynthia has helped me transform mine.

Elena Marie (Ivanushkina), Owner, Purchasing Talents