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Career stories

Helen

Australia

Boardroom Debutantes

Helen

Australia

Legal, risk and finance executive Board director in four companies

With a background in law, risk and compliance, Helen obtained her first non-executive director role in Australia three years ago via her networks. According to her, networking is the best way to get into board membership, as well as a skill that remains critical through an entire boardroom career. What drew Helen in was recognizing that she simply loved building strong businesses. As she says, non-executive roles are “the ultimate backstop of an organisation”. She finds the challenge fascinating and energizing, but adds that the liabilities that sit with non-executive directors are significant and can make one pause for breath. Helen recalls her first board meeting: “It was terrifying! I was very conscious I was the youngest person in the room, and the only female. I felt that I had insufficient experience compared to the others at the table.” Read more

Gabriel

France

Far from Home

Gabriel

France

MSc Engineeering, ICAM Electronics Engineer, PSA Peugeot Citroën

Gabriel’s father pushed him to take Chinese lessons when he started engineering school. He obeyed, somewhat unenthusiastically, but nevertheless, this opened his eyes to other opportunities. When a friend of a friend mentioned an internship in a Peugeot Citroën joint venture in China, he sent his CV, realizing that his study of Chinese, while not a job requirement, just might convince the potential employer. At this point, he had no specific agenda, but was attracted by doing “something different”. Gabriel’s transition to working life in Wuhan was bumpy. He found it deeply depressing not to be able to communicate in a language he thought he’d mastered. He found himself working out of a dark, unheated basement, with little support.

Podcast

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.

BUY THE BOOK

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.

Build your careeragility and thrive