Ask me a Q Hello Bright Minds, and welcome to the start of season six of COMEBACK COACH. I am so pleased to be back sharing stories and coaching sessions about returning to work and onward career development after a break. My guest today is Joanna Jacobs who took a career break straight after maternity leave from Vodafone. Prior to that she was living in Shanghai and working for Sainsburys, sussing out whether China would be a viable market for them and now she’s the HR Director for UK Twinings ...
Jan 24, 2024•40 min
Ask me a Q Hello Bright Minds and welcome to another JUST JESSICA episode of COMEBACK COACH where I’m reflecting on three things that have been top of mind for me lately that I think could be useful to you too. I’m a coaching psychologist, author and founder of The Talent Keeper Specialists which is home to the Comeback Community employee experience of which this podcast is a part. A few weeks ago I went away for three days, two night by myself to my favourite hotel in Cornwall. It’s something I...
Dec 27, 2023•18 min
Ask me a Q Hello Bright Minds, my guest today is Phil Bush, a Credit Control Manager for Euromonitor International in London where he’s worked for 17 years. He responsible for managing a department that collects unpaid debt for the business and minimises financial risk to the company. He lives in Brighton with his partner Jo and their 15 month old daughter Sadie. He’s a runner who has been very keen to do the London marathon and finally this year got to do it after applying and being unsuccessfu...
Nov 22, 2023•40 min
Ask me a Q Hello Bright Minds, my guest today is Gemma Hill, a Heart FM radio presenter whose maternity leave was covered by non other than the formidable Anna Whitehouse AKA Mother Pukka but even still she says, maternity leave was still pretty terrifying. We talk about: Not being instantly delighted that you're pregnant 3am worries about going on maternity leave Having a bl**dy brilliant maternity leave cover Miscarriage How staying in touch with work can reduce anxiety about going back Gemma ...
Nov 08, 2023•35 min
Ask me a Q My guest today is Andy Lancaster who took three months leave for planned eye and shoulder surgery from a job he loves at CIPD Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development. We count CIPD among our clients and love working with them. Andy champions and leads the vision for innovative workplace learning and has been at the heart of CIPD's transformation to digital and self-directed learning, with its professional development opportunities now accessed in over 180 countries. He has mo...
Oct 25, 2023•42 min
Ask me a Q Hello Bright Minds, my guest today is Kerry Hickman, a past coachee of ours at Ramboll. Since qualifying as an Accountant at 21, she’s had a very broad commercial career in Accountancy, Audit and Financial Management before landing in roles that manage Sales & Customer Insight. She’s travelled across sectors including consultancy, media, FMCG, currency and public sector, and worked both in the UK and internationally. We talk about: Being made redundant when you've just come back f...
Oct 11, 2023•32 min
Ask me a Q Hello Bright Minds, today you’re going to eavesdrop on a one-time coaching conversation with "Zara" (not her real name) and get some expert tips on making a career change from Natasha Stanley at Careershifters. I said I'd include a link to the 8 week Career Change Launchpad experience that I talked about with Natasha that 3000 people have been through over the last 10 years. My guest coachee today used to be a diplomat and we’re talking at a point when Zara has applied for roles that ...
Sep 27, 2023•1 hr
Ask me a Q Hello Bright Minds, my guest today is Cecily Motley, an accomplished entrepreneur with a proven track record of growing companies and brand building in competitive markets. She is the founder of JustParent, a new company working to close the gender pay gap by helping small companies offer more paid parental leave. Previously, Cecily co-founded Motley London, a VC backed, direct-to-consumer brand making world class design affordable. Whilst she was there she was both the pregnant emplo...
Sep 13, 2023•35 min
Ask me a Q Hello Bright Minds, my guest today is an HR leader who recently returned to a new job in a new organisation after being bereaved. Having met at university Helen Rowell and her husband Mike married in 2015 and went on to have a son together, Alfie, who at the time of recording is five. In March 2022 Mike was killed in a skiing accident, leaving Helen to raise Alfie alone. One of the many decisions she needed to make was how to approach her career. Up until that point she had worked ful...
Aug 30, 2023•40 min
Ask me a Q Hello Bright Minds and welcome to an impromptu and somewhat experimental "Just Jessica" episode of COMEBACK COACH , the podcast for people returning to work after a break. I’m Jessica Chivers, a coaching psychologist, author, founder of The Talent Keeper Specialists and developer of the Comeback Community employee experience of which this podcast is a part. I started to write this fortnight’s edition of Caremail – that’s our newsletter for people returning to work and looking for supp...
Aug 28, 2023•15 min
Ask me a Q Hello Bright Minds, my guest today is Divya Manek, a senior portfolio manager at BlackRock and a mother of two beautiful girls who I had the complete pleasure of coaching when she returned to work two summers ago. Day to day Divya’s work involves being close to market developments, being close to clients and what they want and making sure client money is managed in the best way possible. She manages 5 people directly and 6 indirectly and she cares hugely about supporting the people ar...
Aug 16, 2023•35 min
Ask me a Q Hello Bright Minds, Chantelle Angel started her career as a Montessori teacher before going onto work for a children’s disability charity where she became pregnant with her first child. That baby is now 3 ½ and she has another son who is 17 months. Chantelle is now a qualified paediatric sleep consultant and founder of Dreaming Angels , working with a range of parents, mainly in the UK, although she’s reached as far as Singapore and the US. You’re going to hear about: Common baby slee...
Aug 02, 2023•33 min
Ask me a Q Hello Bright MInds, in this episode you're going to hear from Georgie Siddall, an operational risk manager who took voluntary redundancy in 2019 when she recognised she was burnt out trying to keep the show on the road at work and at home with three sons under 10. One of her sons is on the autistic spectrum and with no family around to help share the load, life was really challenging for her and her husband. She made her career comeback in July 2021 when she landed a job at Santander,...
Jul 19, 2023•34 min
Ask me a Q Hello Bright Minds, my guest today is Jess Heagren, founder of That Works For Me – a platform that connects employers with people seeking flexible work - and author of the Careers After Babies report . Jess previously held strategically important roles at Direct Line Insurance, NIG and RBS Insurance. She’s wonderfully honest and generous and I was so happy to have this chat with Jess where among other things we talked about: Coming back to work too soon Preparing for a good return The...
Jul 05, 2023•37 min
Ask me a Q Well hello, it’s good to be back. I wonder how you are? Our season four finale was all about how to make full time work work when you have a young family and today we’re turn our attention to career progression, ambition and in particular the role of sponsorship in elevating women’s careers. Although COMEBACK COACH is a podcast for people returning to work from any type of extended leave, the majority of you wonderful Bright Minds are female - and most of you are coming back from mate...
Jun 21, 2023•35 min
Ask me a Q Hello Bright Minds, this is a special season finale involving six guests who are making full time work work with young children. I wanted to do this episode after I read a statistic that didn’t shock me as much as sadden me in a report published earlier this year called “CAREERS AFTER BABIES”. 848 women took part in the research which found 85% of women leave the full-time workforce within three years of having children. Upfront disclaimer, all voices in this episode are women who are...
Apr 26, 2023•52 min
Ask me a Q Hello Bright Mind and welcome to episode 61. Today my guest coachee is Natalie Trice , a PR consultant and trainer and the author of three books. She’s also an ICF-accredited career coach for PR and comms professionals. She’s worked in PR for 25 years and put everyone and everything in the media spotlight. From Epson printers, Discovery Channel documentaries, and Betty Crocker cakes to Animal Planet celebrities, vegan bags and coastal holidays. Today she specialises in PR mentoring an...
Apr 12, 2023•39 min
Ask me a Q Hello, Bright Minds and welcome to episode 60 with Sophie Giddings and Sam Crossley who are the job-sharing Marketing Directors at the gorgeous pet care brand Lily’s Kitchen who we’re proud to count among our clients. I coached Sophie when she returned from maternity leave and as you’ll hear, returning to work as part of a job-share wasn’t plain sailing but they have very definitely got there. In this episode we talk about Being the first job-share at Lily’s Kitchen The benefits to bu...
Mar 29, 2023•32 min
Ask me a Q Hello Bright Minds, my guest today is Elena Gorman, a UX designer at an experience transformation studio in the north of England. She’s a mother two of two, married to Tim and has two naughty cats, Bella and Isaac, and lives in Gateshead. Elena experienced PND after her first child and again after her second. Whilst working as a project manager she stumbled across UX design and fell in love with it and it’s totally changed her career and where she sees it going. She also has PhD in th...
Mar 15, 2023•37 min
Ask me a Q Hello Bright Minds, my guests today are Times journalist, Paul Morgan-Bentley and his husband Robin. Paul is the author of a brand new book, The Equal Parent, which explores the falsehoods behind parenting roles. Paul and Robin both went through their own work comebacks after taking many months of Shared Parental Leave after having their son Solley through surrogacy. We talk about: their surrogacy journey how they each prepared to return to work how they share the load at home the unc...
Mar 01, 2023•46 min
Ask me a Q Hello Bright Minds, my guest today is Emily who has over 12 years Account Management experience. She’s worked in two of the big London Advertising agencies and her most recent role was at a CRM agency as an Account Director. She’s married to Tom, they have two daughters, Mollie who is 3 and, Mila who is nearly 1 and after nearly 4 years away from her career she’s fired up to make her comeback. In this conversation I help Emily get into the right mindset for finding the role she wants ...
Feb 15, 2023•44 min
Ask me a Q Hello Bright Minds, my guest today is Selina Tyler, Head of UK Wholesale at Lombard Odier Investment Management. She’s a past coachee of mine who I wanted to get on the podcast because of her experience of interviewing whilst visibly pregnant and starting a new role in a new organisation after maternity leave. Selina has 18 years of investment management experience and joined the business from Mirabaud Asset Management. She’s also held other senior roles at Hermes Investment Managemen...
Feb 01, 2023•34 min
Ask me a Q Hello Bright Minds, this episode is a conversation I’ve been looking forward to having ever since one of the coaches in my team at The Talent Keeper Specialists - the wonderful Shiobhaun - coached her and told me about what a star she is. Rowena Tolley is a trademark partner at intellectual property firm Kilburn & Strode, based in the London team. They work with clients of all sizes across all industries, protecting their brands and inventions. MORE FOR YOU DM Jessica on instagram...
Jan 18, 2023•31 min
Ask me a Q Hello Bright Minds, welcome to 2023. If you're feeling a bit flat and need help cranking up again professionally, this episode is for you. Please share generously with your team mates. In this very short episode I share five tips for getting your head back into work as easily, smoothly and enjoyably as possible. Here they are in a nutshell: 1. Do something difficult. 2. Do something easy. 3. Walk - article on divergent thinking and walking here . 4. Half a half day away day with yours...
Jan 03, 2023•15 min
Ask me a Q Hello Bright Minds, my guest coachee today is Rachel, a senior marketing and insight professional and mum of two boys who recently returned to work after an extended period of sick leave after suffering from burnout. . Four key takeouts from this episode: . Assume people want to help you and that you deserve to be helped. Share what your ‘dream’ help would be and let them negotiate downwards if needs be! (For Rachel this was having one set of grandparents have the boys after lunch eve...
Dec 28, 2022•42 min
Ask me a Q Emmie Faust is a past coachee, exited Founder, an Angel Investor, mother of four and passionate about supporting women. She recently launched Female Founders Rise to champion female founders and has aspirations to launch a micro-fund to invest in impact-led female-founded businesses. We’re talking about Emmie’s experience of coming back from burnout and long covid and it’s a wonderfully candid conversation. MORE FOR YOU DM Jessica on instagram @comebackcommuk Get Caremail (free, every...
Dec 14, 2022•42 min
Ask me a Q Hello Bright Minds, my guests this time are Emma & Mark James. Emma is a buyer at TJX Europe and Mark is a primary school teacher. They have two children and Emma returned to work from maternity leave a few months before we had this conversation. Mark has just changed his work pattern to do three days a week and Emma works full time. We talk about sharing the load at home and the great things that can happen when daddy works part-time. I hope you enjoy(ed) it. MORE FOR YOU DM Jess...
Nov 30, 2022•53 min
Ask me a Q Jessica talks to six brilliant women in big jobs talk about MANTRAS FOR HAPPINESS & SUCCESS. This is a snippet from career panel Q&A we hosted as part of The Talent Keeper Specialists' 10th birthday celebration (TTKS is the business behind the Comeback Community employee experience of which COMEBACK COACH is a part). The six women: Daisy Allington - Chief Operating Officer, Cognitant Justine Anderson, Chief Operating Officer, BlackRock (EMEA) Debbie Dalzell, Global HR Director...
Nov 09, 2022•6 min
Ask me a Q Jessica talks to six brilliant women in big jobs talk about BUILDING TRUST. This is a snippet from career panel Q&A we hosted as part of The Talent Keeper Specialists' 10th birthday celebration (TTKS is the business behind the Comeback Community employee experience of which COMEBACK COACH is a part). The six women: Daisy Allington - Chief Operating Officer, Cognitant Justine Anderson, Chief Operating Officer, BlackRock (EMEA) Debbie Dalzell, Global HR Director, GAM Investments Dr ...
Nov 09, 2022•6 min
Ask me a Q Jessica talks to six brilliant women in big jobs talk about FAILURE. This is a snippet from career panel Q&A we hosted as part of The Talent Keeper Specialists' 10th birthday celebration (TTKS is the business behind the Comeback Community employee experience of which COMEBACK COACH is a part). The six women: Daisy Allington - Chief Operating Officer, Cognitant Justine Anderson, Chief Operating Officer, BlackRock (EMEA) Debbie Dalzell, Global HR Director, GAM Investments Dr Melinda...
Nov 02, 2022•14 min
