S3E10: Megan Dunford didn't know what to take in university and ended up getting a degree in Physics and ultimately built a career in international payments and foreign exchange.

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 Mary Kemp, started her career as a nurse and is now the co-founder of AI Potential which helps business leaders create a culture of high performance with AI.

https://simplerwith.ai/

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S3 Trailer: Sneak peek from another amazing season of incredible career journeys.

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Season 2 Episode 10: Suresh is now the founder of Clowd9, but it was a conversation at a party that led to his first role in the Payments space.

 Clowd9 is the world's first cloud native, decentralized issuer processing platform. Check out their website: https://www.clowd9.com/

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Season 2 Episode 9: Ilona is a Leadership Coach and Consultant who found her way to her career with stops in Japan and Italy and stints in the Foreign Office and teaching along the way.

Check out her website: https://ilonabrannen.com/

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Season 2 Episode 8: Aliya Dhalla is the founder of Box Wellness & Co and podcast host of "Not Your Mother's Pelvic Floor".  Hear her journey from figuring out what she didn't want early in her career to ultimately finding balance and a passion for women's health.

Check out her website: https://boxwellness.co/ and check out her Podcast on Spotify and Apple Podcasts

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Season 2 Episode 7: Howard had dreams of becoming a Hotel Manager and followed that dream before ultimately pivoting and building a career as a Sales Leader.

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Season 2 Episode 6: Genevieve had dreams of working in fashion before finding herself in financial services.  Now she's Product leader, speaker, coach and is writing a book!

Checkout her website: https://www.warpaintconsulting.com/

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Season 2 Episode 5: Dr. Nadia Morozova, Chief Analytics and Insights Officer, shares her journey from an early passion for research to launching a Data Insights company.

Check out her TedX Talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VU8wDa5gMo

Check out her website: https://enrichedinsights.com/

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Season 2 Episode 4: Christine pursued a winding corporate career, with some teaching along the way, leaning into roles and opportunities that allowed her to learn and build on her previous experiences ultimately taking her into a new career as a Psychotherapist. https://momentymtherapy.com/

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Season 2 Episode 3: Dylan shares his journey so far and how he has navigated from music studio to financial services, and how he took chances and what he's learned along the way.

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Season 2 Episode 2: Kelsey Reidl shares her journey figuring out her career path and how she stayed open to the things that lit her up as she figured it out. http://www.kelseyreidl.com/

Check out her podcast Visionary Life Podcast too.

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S3E8: Yasmin Ulrich was pursuing a professional tennis career when injury had her face some difficult new career decisions.

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Season 2 Episode 1: Rachel wanted to work with animals from a young age before ultimately becoming a teacher.  After experiencing burnout she made a big pivot and is now co-owner of a wine shop that specializes in American wines from the West Coast, https://www.pacificwines.co.uk/

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Season 2 is almost here!  Get a little sneak preview of what's to come, starting May 27, 2025.

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Season 1 Episode 10: Jocelynn shares her slightly unconventional path towards leadership in financial services and how she backed herself while remaining true to herself throughout.

Book recommendation shared in this episode can be found here:

Mindset by Dr. Carol S Dweck - https://www.waterstones.com/book/mindset-updated-edition/carol-dweck/9781472139955

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Season 1 Episode 9: Aarti's journey spans legal, banking, sales to Biotech CEO and she shares how she made those decisions along the way and how she is taking a different approach as she decides what's next.

There were two book recommendations in this episode, check them out here:

The 100 Year Life by Lynda Gratton and Adam J Scott: https://www.100yearlife.com/

Range by David Epstein: https://davidepstein.com/range/

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Season 1 Episode 8: After a changing retail market forced Lee out of a successful career in Sales he transitioned into a completely new career as a police officer in the UK and then in Canada.

Book recommendation from this week's episode: Hidden Potential by Adam Grant https://adamgrant.net/book/hidden-potential/

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Season 1 Episode 7: Audrey shares her amazing journey from France to England and how she navigated her journey from fashion to ecommerce to launching a business all while juggling her diverse interests.

To learn more about Audrey's wonderful new business, check out their website: https://www.tinkaandco.com/

Book Recommendation: Think Again by Adam Grant https://adamgrant.net/book/think-again/

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Season 1 Episode 6: Steve shares his unconventional career journey through Marketing, a stint as a chef and now as a personal trainer. He has not been afraid to walk away when something is no longer a fit and experiment to figure out what he might want to do next.

If you are looking for a trainer or fitness class in London, check out Steve's website: https://totahealth.fitness/

Book Recommendation: Working Identify by Herminia Ibarra - https://herminiaibarra.com/working-identity-book/

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Season 1 Episode 5: Jenny unexpectedly found herself in the film industry and over 20 years built her career across Canada, Australia and the UK, climbing the ladder up to Executive Producer (and winning an Oscar along the way) before make a role and industry change.

This week's book recommendation: Stand Out by Dorie Clark - https://dorieclark.com/stand-out/

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Bili is an entrepreneur in global real estate and hospitality, but started out as a geologist whose career journey took many turns through audit and finance and operations and strategy on the way.

Check out her beautiful property in Italy: www.casapoliti.com

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Season 1 Epidsode 3: Michelle had a choice between banking and energy right out of university and chose the one that would give her the experiences she was looking for.  Hear how she proactively took ownership of her career and how she had adjusted as her life has evolved.

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S3E7: John Turley-Ewart has a PhD in History and a MBA. He has built a career a columnist and a banker.

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 Lucrezia's career journey started at an airport foreign exchange counter and took her from Montreal to Toronto to Rome and then back to Canada and eventually into the life of an entrepreneur as CEO of Vesta Social Innovations Technologies.

Check out Vesta's website to learn more: https://www.vestasit.com/

And this week's book recommendation can be found here:  https://brenebrown.com/book/dare-to-lead/

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Season 1 Episode 1

Hear how Olivia found her way into Fintech after pursuing a degree in Literature and History.  It's a journey of transferrable skills, finding the right environment and future-proofing.

There's a book recommendation in there too, which you can find here: https://www.100yearlife.com/

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Season 1 coming January 7th!

Real people share their real career journeys; hear a few snippets here!

Subscribe here and follow us on Instagram @theunexpectedcareer and on TikTok @unexpectedcareer

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S3E6: Geri Valova is the founder and COO of MetaSim Learning Solutions, CEO, and founder of Youbee and co-founder of Magna Club, a club and community for executive women.

Magna Club: https://magnaclub.circle.so/

MetaSim: https://menta-ai.com/

Youbee: http://www.mybookoflife.co.uk/

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S3E5: Jennifer had dreams of a career in the arts when she was young, but with a desire for a more stable life she started her career in recruitment and has now found her passion as a leader in Diversity, Equity and Inclusion.

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S3E4: Derrick Walton started his career in the Navy before transitioning to the world of payments and  is the CEO and co-found of Spheros, a data company that allows you to control access and share data across industries and applications. 

Check out Spheros website: https://www.spheros.io/

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S3E3: Christina Brugger is an Engineer by training and an accomplished flautist.  She is now a self-employed B2B Customer Insights and Product Launch Specialist at Insight Sprint and Founder and Coach at Keys to Impact, an academy to support women in STEM find their voice and navigate in male dominated environments.

Insight Sprint - Turn Customer Conversations into Product & Market
Success: https://www.insightsprint.io/

Keys to Impact - Build Your Authentic Influence: https://www.keystoimpact.com/

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S3E2: Before leaning into his passion for computers and creating a career as a Senior IT Leader, Mike Dobson had dreams of becoming a History teacher and rugby coach.

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S3E1: Lisa Ardley-Price had dreams of the stage, and ultimately became a lawyer in the Banking sector while also co-founding Channel Your Serenity, a holistic coaching business that blends coaching, mindfulness, and movement.

You can learn more and sign-up for their newsletter, Moments of Serenity, here: Channel Your Serenity and check them out on LinkedIn and Instagram

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S4E6: Lulu Laidlaw-Smith's grandfather gave her her first introduction to reading between the lines and an education in hospitality developed her strategic holistic vision. Lulu is now Partner, Commercial Growth at The IMCC and Founder of Rip It Up Start Again.

http://www.ripitup.co/

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S4E5: Rob Saltrese shares his journey into entrepreneurship and what he's building now (and what he learned from facing a divorce and a business divorce at the same time).

Rob is Co-founder and COO at Lyra Labs. https://lyralabs.co/

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S4E4: Shemina Jiwani shares her career journey and how it hasn't been a straight line to CEO. There were pivots to new industries and steps backwards on the way to stepping into the CEO role at Ascendant.

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S4E3: Ben Kinning is a Business Owner, Sales Leader, Trainer and Mentor with Sales Geek, but after stepping off of the path that had been laid out for him he first created a path for himself in Corporate.

You can learn more about the services he now provides here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ben-kinning/

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S4E2: Susan Walsh is Founder and Managing Director of The Classification Guru Ltd and turns chaotic business data into something businesses can trust.

Following an early career in Sales and then rebuilding after bankruptcy after a retail business failed, she found her calling in data and has built a specialist business supporting 100+ organizations globally and created a tool, Samification, to help organizations standardize their supplier and customer data. And check out her TedX Talk, Say No to No

Website: http://www.theclassificationguru.com/

Samification: https://samification.com/

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S4E1: Nicole Baxby is Senior Vice President of Customer Success and Partnerships at Quantifind and she shares her career journey in financial services and how she has taken risks and showed a bit of gumption to carve her own path.

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In Season 4 we share 10 more discussions with real people about their career journeys and the twists, turns, pivots and lessons learned along the way.

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