Redefining Success: Leadership, Learning, and the Career You Really Want
A conversation with Julia Milner, Professor of Leadership at EDHEC Business School, TEDx Speaker, YouTuber.
Build your career
agility and thrive
News
Research: When It’s Time to Leave a Career You’re Passionate About
Quitting a passion can feel like failure, but new research reveals it’s often seen as strength—and could be the first…
How to Know When to Pursue Your Side Gig Full-Time
Thinking of leaving your job for a side gig? Consider these 5 factors first.
Career stories
Frédéric
France
Surviving Career Setbacks
Frédéric
France
From High-Profile Arrest
to Corporate Redemption
Frédéric faced a harrowing journey from a high-profile arrest accused of bribery to imprisonment. Abandoned by his employer, he navigated isolation and uncertainty. Through meticulous journaling and a disciplined routine in prison, he emerged with a determination to re-enter the corporate world. Leveraging his expertise in compliance and corruption laws, he pioneered consulting and educational initiatives. Frédéric’s resilience, lobbying efforts, and his book, « The American Trap, » not only marked his personal redemption but also positioned him as an advocate for change and human rights.
Read more
William
United Kingdom
Serial Entrepreneurs
William
United Kingdom
From Legal Path
to Soupmaker’s Triumph and Serial Entrepreneurship
Born into a farming family, William, initially in law, ventured into investment banking before an INSEAD MBA reshaped his trajectory. Joining Covent Garden Soup Company, he rose from consultant to CEO, turning chaos into profit. After selling the company, William revitalized Green & Black’s chocolate, a Fair Trade success. Now investing in businesses with a focus on provenance, he urges aspiring entrepreneurs to act boldly when stakes are high, providing a unique competitive advantage. Read more
Brad
United States
Business to HR Leader
Brad
United States
Enjoying the stretch and the ride
of repositioning HR as the backbone of OLX Group
Discover the extraordinary career shift of Brad, a Silicon Valley veteran, as he transcends from CMO to unexpectedly becoming the Global Chief People Officer at OLX Group. Brad’s journey takes a surprising turn when his CEO proposes this unconventional leap into HR, despite his lack of experience. Dive into Brad’s transformative approach to leading HR across diverse geographies, balancing freedom and control. Learn how he strategically positioned HR as the backbone of the company, flipping the traditional matrix. Brad’s insights on fostering diversity and inclusion, aligning people through outcomes, and empowering others make this article a captivating exploration of unconventional leadership.
Read more
Ike
Nigeria
Returning Diaspora
Ike
Nigeria
CEO & Founder, Centrro Inc.
Asset Management Board Member & Head of Strategy & Corporate Development,eTranzact
Ike, a serial entrepreneur and seller of highly successful businesses, was born in Nigeria into a diplomatic family. He spent his nomadic childhood building his very first companies – selling popcorn to his friends at movie nights in Zimbabwe, and cold drinks to his neighbors in Nigeria. This childhood prepared him for a lifestyle of frequent travel and entrepreneurship. Ike states repeatedly that he believes he was dealt “an incredibly lucky set of cards in life”, with a Silicon Valley education, an engineering qualification and a taste for business. This was the magic combination for success in a series of start-up companies.
Read moreThe 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.
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
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
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
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
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.
Sign up
Sign up to receive regular insightful news and advice on managing your career and receive a free gift. Inspiration delivered straight to your Inbox!