What do the music industry, Korea, an edtech IPO, Oprah Winfrey, higher education, and management consulting have in common? ---- Absolutely nothing except that it's the order of my non-traditional career path. Did you know that in today's workforce millennials leave a job every 2.8 years and that 25% of people aged 35 will have worked at least five jobs in their career? There are a myriad of reasons why people do this ranging from money and improved opportunities to a connection to social causes and of course work/life balance.I can't tell you specifically about anyone else, but I can tell you that each time I've changed companies it has resulted in building something new and great with incredible people.
I've been building communities my whole life whether I knew it or not, but professionally since 2008 when I started using new-at-the-time social media tools to build a cultural community of expats while living abroad teaching English. I was hooked from that point on. So much so that in 2010 I created #cmgrchat with Kelly Lux which began a five-year exploration of everything about online community management. And now for eight years I've been teaching the subject in a Master's degree program at Syracuse University.
My love of online community brought me to Oliver Wyman for nearly five years where I led their corporate social responsibility program and their global corporate alumni program where it was my job to help the company remain connected to their former employees for the purpose of recruitment, business development, and brand awareness. With my first hand knowledge of job transitions and now having helped others do the same through networking I am fascinated by the employee lifecycle.
I've joined PeoplePath as the Vice President of Customer Advocacy. PeoplePath aims to engage talent for life through their online platform, and I get to work on sharing best practices for their clients, as well as contribute to the education and thought leadership in the corporate alumni industry. You can read all about it here, but I am very much looking forward to this new chapter as part of the management team of this company I’ve worked so closely with the last few years.