3,2,1 iRelaunch

Kendra Johnson is currently Senior Counsel/Manager, Management Liability Claims at the global insurance giant, Markel Corporation. Kendra had been out of the legal profession for over 12 years when she attended our Spring 2019 iRelaunch Return to Work Conference in metro Chicago, at a pre-Pandemic time when our conferences were in person! Shortly after attending, she was hired at Markel handling m...

Heather Black is founder and CEO of Supermums, an organization that trains relaunchers and others to be Salesforce administrators. In 2010, Heather became an “accidental” Salesforce administrator for her non-profit, helping to establish their customer relationship management system (CRM). She loved it so much that two years later she decided to upskill as a Salesforce Consultant and help other non...

Steve Deeble is a Senior Technical Writer at Gurucul, a global cybersecurity company protecting data and information from insider threats and external cyberattacks. He has taken career breaks to care for his father following a stroke, and to transition back to a technical career after 12 years as a video producer. He found himself competing with younger professionals and had to fight the perceptio...

Jennifer Tufillaro is a Control Account Manager for the Radar Systems Engineering Group at Lockheed Martin. She initially joined Lockheed Martin after receiving her bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from Villanova University, and subsequently took a 20-year career break for childcare reasons. Jennifer returned to Lockheed Martin when she relaunched her career through Lockheed’s Chapter N...

Monique Garcia Rizer was a military spouse for 13 years to a reserve service member. She relaunched twice, first after her partner's deployment, and second, after a major life transition. Monique currently serves as Vice President of Freedman Consulting, a consulting firm focused on strategic planning and policy development for non-profits, foundations and advocacy organizations. She has served in...

Anita Rehman is a Partner at GSV in Silicon Valley who took a 2-year career break. Her experience encompasses roles as an entrepreneur, investor, and advisor to global companies in the Technology sector. Prior to GSV, Anita was an investment professional at Vantage Point Capital Partners where she invested in early to growth stage technology companies across the Consumer, Enterprise and Energy sec...

Lazetta Rainey Braxton is the co-CEO of 2050 Wealth Partners, a financial planning firm. She is also the Founder and CEO of Lazetta and Associates, a consulting practice that helps financial services firms create culturally aware and hospitable workplace environments. Today we are focusing on financial decision making when returning to work after a career break. Relaunching can impact Social Secur...

In 2015, Estelle, a French native, resigned from a career in proposal development at an ERP software company to meet the demands of mothering a child with special needs and a new baby. Shortly after, she turned published a food survival guide for French people in the US. Next, she challenged herself to review 37 chocolate bars in honor of her 37th birthday that Halloween. Estelle is now an award-w...

Kimberly Frost is the Director of Public Sector Growth at Britton Industries, a circular eco solutions company, where she manages recycling initiatives throughout New Jersey and Pennsylvania, tapping into her passion for creative repurposing and sustainable materials management strategies. Following a relocation and birth of her son, Kim took a career break to adapt to her new circumstances. She w...

Chad Koenig is a Managing Director with Cushman & Wakefield's Atlanta Office Tenant Advisory Group. His wife, relauncher Kati Koenig, was our guest for the 223rd episode of the 3,2,1 iRelaunch podcast. Kati took a 20-year career break before relaunching her career as a Salesforce Administrator. She is now a Senior Salesforce Business Analyst for Booz Allen Hamilton. In this episode, which is the f...

Cedric Layton is the Global ReEntry Program Co-Ordinator at J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., responsible for all facets of their long running, rapidly growing, global career ReEntry Program - including all executive champions, managers, other internal stakeholders and especially the relauncher "Fellows" themselves. We discuss what to expect when applying to and participating in the ReEntry Program, and th...

Betsy began her career as an occupational therapist before making a career shift into sales and ultimately into pharmaceutical sales. After taking a career break to raise her three children, Betsy discovered her passion for organizing, rearranging, and re-doing furniture and decor. She began in her own home and soon was getting requests to do the same at her friends’ homes. After discovering there...

Market researcher Prabha Kannan took a seven-year career break before relaunching at Apple, ultimately as the Managing Editor for Siri – which means, as Prabha describes, “head writer and character lead for Siri”. After four years in this role, Prabha published a LinkedIn post that went viral, talking about her decision to take a second career break. This post has over 95,000 reactions, 2,000 comm...

Elizabeth Bader was a Team Effectiveness Coach at Red Hat at the time of this recording and has since been promoted to North American Regional Advocate in Sales! Over the course of her career, Elizabeth has taken three career breaks – one to obtain a Master’s Degree in Organizational Leadership, one to start her own company, and one for family care. This year, she is celebrating the twenty-second...

At the time of this podcast recording, Mariany Polanco-Cruz was a Vice President on the Global Diversity Recruiting Team at Goldman Sachs. She discusses the recent innovations to the Goldman Sachs Returnship program which was completely overhauled, as well as last Fall’s newly-introduced COVID-19 Career Relaunch Initiative. Mariany describes who is eligible, including important guidance for intere...

Richard Eisenberg was, until recently, the Managing Editor of Next Avenue, the PBS’s website for people 50+, and the editor of the site's Money & Policy and Work & Purpose channels. Richard was a previous guest for Episode 197 of the 3,2,1 iRelaunch podcast, when we discussed career progression trends for the 50+ worker, how COVID impacted those trends, and his predictions about what working behav...

Relauncher Nuala Murphy is a professional marketer, entrepreneur, community builder and connector. As a marketer she has worked with some of Northern Ireland's most successful companies internationally, selling and marketing products, services and technology across many industries for 15+ years. As President of the Lean In network in Belfast, Nuala has led and scaled the Lean In movement across Ir...

Shay Baker is Program Manager of Return Utah, Utah’s career reentry program. Utah is the first state to launch a career reentry program. Shay was a participant in the inaugural cohort of Return Utah that launched in fall 2021, and was subsequently hired to run the program. The second cohort launched in January with almost three times as many participants as the first. Shay is a relauncher herself,...

Bef Ayenew is Director of Engineering at LinkedIn where he leads the Search and Profile engineering teams focused on helping LinkedIn members express their professional identity. In this special edition of our podcast, Bef announces the launching of the significant, new LinkedIn profile feature that is particularly relevant to relaunchers, the career break designation. Now, a career break can be p...

Marion Viray is Program Manager of the Technology Leadership Development Program at Baruch College and Advisor for the Starr Career Development Program. Marion moderated our Successful Relaunchers Panel at the October 2021 iRelaunch Return to Work Conference. Marion stepped away from full-time employment to focus on childcare. In the years since, he has held a variety of freelance, adjunct, and pa...

Alex Mooney is Sr. Manager of DEI Talent Acquisition Programs and a 12 year Amazonian serving in increasingly senior HR roles, most recently in innovative talent pipelines and DEI talent acquisition. He is the founder of the Amazon Returnship Program and leads other global talent acquisition programs. Under Alex’s leadership, Amazon Returnship has committed to hiring 1,000 returners over the next...

Nadia Gil is Head of Business Strategy at Google Cloud, where she is responsible for developing international strategic planning and transforming the operations for Google Cloud's cyber security products. Nadia has over 20 years of experience in strategic transformation and operations with a specialty in strategic planning, mergers and acquisitions (M&A), and integrations. She has an MBA from The...

Mary Catherine Malley is Senior Corporate Counsel for Juniper Networks. Her route to this huge role for a global, NYSE listed, multi-billion company following an 11 year career break is the topic of our conversation. A surprising conversation with a neighbor jumpstarted her relaunch, and ended up in a returnship-like role for his company. Mary Catherine details the key role networking played in he...

Kati Koenig is Senior Salesforce Business Analyst at Liberty IT Solutions, a Booz Allen Hamilton Company. Kati took a 20-year career break from a sales and marketing career in the hospitality industry, during which she spearheaded a number of fundraising efforts and initiatives around her community and within the local schools. Knowing her abilities and potential, Kati’s husband suggested she try...

Sirisha Kuchimanchi is a Global Engineering & Manufacturing Executive with Texas Instruments, as well as a podcast host. Sirisha took two career breaks in less than eight years, during which time she raised her family and earned her doctorate in Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University. Sirisha hosts the podcast "Women, Career and Life" and works in the tech industry, where she leads teams, dri...