The Hidden Power of Career Reinvention
A conversation with John Tarnoff, Executive and Career Transition Coach, Founder and Community Partner of the Mid-Career Lab
Build your career
agility and thrive
News
Research: As Careers Get Longer, Midcareer Work Needs to Change
As careers lengthen, organizations must redesign midcareer work to help professionals in their 40s avoid burnout and sustain long-term growth.
From Motion to Momentum: Career Innovation, Reputation and Real Progress
A conversation with Tendayi Viki, Psychologist, Author, Speaker and Advisor.
Career stories
Derek
South Africa
Non-Profit to Big Business
Derek
South Africa
A Doctor’s Journey from Global Health
to the Dark Side
Explore Derek‘s extraordinary odyssey from a South African doctor challenging apartheid’s impact on health to his pivotal role in global health policies. Derek’s journey unfolds through academia, WHO initiatives, collaboration with corporate giants, and a controversial stint at PepsiCo. Accused of straying to the « dark side, » Derek advocates for harm reduction in tobacco, facing global bans and criticism. His controversial path, from incentivizing healthy lifestyles to collaborating with Philip Morris, sparks debates on public health. Derek’s story is a gripping exploration of ethics, conviction, and the complex dance between profit and progress in the pursuit of saving millions of lives.
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Celia
UK
Spin Doctors
Celia
UK
Military Doctor
Photograph, area manager at an online health and wellness company
Celia has moved in and out of medicine since she began her career. She was always planning to be either a doctor or a vet, and eventually decided to opt for caring for humans, based on advice she received and found persuasive while attending a careers fair. She was supported through university medicine studies by the Royal Army Medical Corps, and thus her first house job was in a military hospital. Months more of such postings would have ensued, but the Gulf War broke out and army establishments became off limits to civilians, and she then transferred to a non-military role. This switch allowed her to reflect on her experience, and to recognize that her natural preference might not be for treating otherwise healthy young men, and that her talents in care could probably lead her in other directions, especially when it came to building rapport and more holistic approaches.
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Brad
United States
Business to HR Leader
Brad
United States
Enjoying the stretch and the ride
of repositioning HR as the backbone of OLX Group
Discover the extraordinary career shift of Brad, a Silicon Valley veteran, as he transcends from CMO to unexpectedly becoming the Global Chief People Officer at OLX Group. Brad’s journey takes a surprising turn when his CEO proposes this unconventional leap into HR, despite his lack of experience. Dive into Brad’s transformative approach to leading HR across diverse geographies, balancing freedom and control. Learn how he strategically positioned HR as the backbone of the company, flipping the traditional matrix. Brad’s insights on fostering diversity and inclusion, aligning people through outcomes, and empowering others make this article a captivating exploration of unconventional leadership.
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Ricardo
Spain
Lifers
Ricardo
Spain
Audit, Operations and general management and HR in BNP Paribas
When Ricardo’s parents required him to return to his home country to obtain his Spanish degree on top of his European “grande école” qualification in business, they probably did not realize that they were changing his professional path completely. He left Paris with two enviable offers from consumer companies in hand to complete his Spanish diploma. By the time he returned to France, a year later, economic conditions had changed and he was no longer welcome in the same area. So he returned to Spain, in the hope of being able to play on his multilingual strengths as well as his experience and academics to date.
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The book
Disrupt Your Career:
How to Navigate
Uncharted Career
Transitions and Thrive
By Antoine Tirard and Claire Harbour
Paperback, 310 pages
Publisher: Lulu Publishing Services
Professionals face many critical crossroads in their careers, sometimes unpredictable, sometimes more expected, but for which they were often not truly prepared.
This book discusses many such career transitions – from leaving a corporation to joining a non-profit, evolving from athlete to executive, or returning to a former employer.
Using the stories of 50 leaders interviewed all over the world, the authors describe what provokes the change, the challenges it creates, how the individual is surviving the transition, and what effective leaders do to navigate and grow from it.
The book offers a simple, easy-to-use framework to help make the most of any uncharted transition.
To thrive, you have to follow a four-stage process of Exploring, Experimenting,
Engaging and Expanding. Drawing on examples of a wide range of companies, Disrupt Your Career also provides recommendations to help organizations better acquire, develop and retain talent.
With both compelling stories and rigorous research, Disrupt Your Career serves as a call to exploit novel ways to approach careers and presents practical advice to help both individuals and organizations better prepare, manage, and make the most of career changes – ultimately leading to more fulfilling careers.
What people are saying
This book brings a fresh approach – based on the stories of a diverse and colorful range of career changers – that will inspire many to explore similar moves. It also provides excellent thinking for organizations, where there is still an enormous need for improved approaches to career management.
Herminia Ibarra
Charles Handy Professor of Organizational Behavior at London Business School
How often have you wondered if those that leave your organization are doing so for the right reasons? What would you give to know more, and lose less? Disrupt Your Career holds one of the keys to this increasing challenge for leaders, and outlines a series of insights and processes that can lead to better career comfort for individuals and enhanced, more effective career management for organizations. Tirard and Harbour-Lyell tell the stories that illustrate the career transitions with simplicity and empathy, and make it obvious that we can all learn from them.
Åsa Landén Ericsson
CEO of Cygate, Board Member of Grant Thornton Sweden, Formpipe and Rhenman & Partners
For a leader in any substantial organization, one major preoccupation beyond attracting the very best people is also keeping them stimulated, challenged and fulfilled. This book provides invaluable insight, research and strategies for improvement in both talent strategy and career management. The stories are inspiring and authentic, indicating new paths to follow, and innovative approaches to managing career paths for both companies and individuals.
Jean-Claude Le Grand
Senior VP Talent Development and Chief Diversity Officer, L’Oréal
An essential, soul-saving guide for anyone navigating a non-traditional career path, including most women. And for the companies smart enough to attract them – and creative enough to benefit from their adaptive skills.
Avivah Wittenberg-Cox
CEO of 20-first and author of Seven Steps to Leading a Gender-Balanced Business
Disrupt Your Career makes a significant contribution towards the career challenge, by illustrating various uncharted transitions with compelling and insightful stories. The frameworks are strikingly simple, and the book provides invaluable options and strategies for organizations and individuals alike.
Gianpiero Petriglieri
Associate Professor of Organisational Behaviour at INSEAD
Career disruption will happen to everyone – and most of us are ill prepared. This captivating book shows how to understand career transitions and gives fascinating and practical ideas about how best to navigate. A must read for anyone embarking on a life change.
Lynda Gratton
Professor of Management Practice at London Business School
Whether you are an individual pondering a big change, or forced into transition by yet another downsizing, or you are leading an organization and hoping to stem the early attrition of your people, there is something here for you. The stories are compelling, and the frameworks for action simple and solid.
Per Heggenes
CEO, The IKEA Foundation
…combines insights drawn from stories of successful career changers with rigorous research and practical ideas that can be put to immediate use. The book beautifully demonstrates that career reinvention is not only possible, but should be embraced in today’s VUCA world.
Kevin Cashman
Senior Partner, CEO & Executive Development, Korn Ferry and bestselling author
About
Antoine Tirard is a talent management advisor and the founder of NexTalent. He is the former head of talent management of Novartis and LVMH.
Claire Harbour is a coach and global talent expert, the founder of Culture Pearl and a speaker, consultant and writer about all things to do with optimizing talent across borders.
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