Comeback Coach

Ask me a Q Hello Bright Minds, my guest today is Lianne Baker, Head of People & Culture at Enfuse who had surprise baby number three last year and we caught up at the end of her five month maternity leave. Lianne is an award-winning People professional with over 15 years’ experience working within TV for Endemol, publishing for Condé Nast, recruitment, hospitality and now for Enfuse, a digital...

Ask me a Q Hello Bright Minds, my guest today is Ros Kwok, a woman I was introduced to after asking one of the wonderful Partners at our past podcast sponsor, Rayden Solicitors if she had a client who had had to return to work due to a change in financial circumstances following divorce. Thank you Emily Watson for coming up trumps in less than 24 hours! And you’ll also hear from Emily at the end o...

Ask me a Q Hello Bright Minds, my guest today is Andrea Byrne, one of the faces of ITV News and a past coachee of mine.  She anchors the BAFTA award-winning daily news programme Wales at Six, as well as ITV’s national bulletins. This includes ITV Weekend News, Lunchtime News, Evening News and News at Ten and Prince Harry is among the many high-profile names she has interviewed. Andrea also present...

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, sussin...

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...

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 ke...

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 m...

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-directe...

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...

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 yea...

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-consu...

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 man...

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...

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...

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 U...

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 challeng...

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 wh...

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 leav...

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 wi...

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...

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 go...

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 i...

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:  t...

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 co...

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 busin...