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From Money to Molecules: Taylor Murphy '16 on Leading AI Transformation in a Global Enterprise
49 Plays1 month ago
In this episode, Taylor Murphy shares her journey from fintech to pharmaceutical innovation, now helping drive an AI-powered transformation at a global scale. She breaks down what it really takes to turn big AI ambitions into operational reality—highlighting the importance of mindset shifts, communication, and organizational design. From agile product thinking to ethical AI governance, Taylor offers a candid look at how companies can move faster, stay human-centered, and empower teams during periods of rapid change—while building careers that adapt and thrive alongside emerging technology.
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Transcript
Introduction of Taylor Murphy
00:00:08
Speaker
Hello, I'm Jeff Hemsley, and this is another episode of InfoVersity from the iSchool at Syracuse University. Today, we're joined by iSchool alumna, Terry Murphy, Taylor Murphy, sorry, from 2016, a digital transformation leader working at the intersection of strategy, technology, and human-centered change.
00:00:30
Speaker
After studying information management and technology and global enterprise technology at the iSchool, Taylor began her career in financial services at Fidelity and moved into technology consulting at EY and now partners with product leadership at Sanofi.
Sanofi's AI Transformation Goals
00:00:50
Speaker
How do I say that? Sanofi? You can say Sanofi or Sanofi.
00:00:55
Speaker
Sanofi. I like Sanofi. That's okay. Great. To design and operationalize its global digital R&D operating model as the company works towards becoming AI powered pharmaceutical enterprise. And we're gonna talk a lot about AI and stuff like that.
Taylor's Career Journey: Finance to Pharma
00:01:14
Speaker
She describes her path as going from money to molecules, which I think is very clever, blending FinTech rigor with pharmaceutical innovation. Alongside her enterprise work, she she's also the founder of a leadership and strategic clarity advisory, Taylor A. Murphy Coaching.
00:01:34
Speaker
supporting professional women navigating career inflection points and personal transformation. Today we'll talk about what it really means to become an AI powered, how to translate big ideas into actionable, scalable processes, and what leadership looks like during periods of transformation, which I think is very relevant at the moment.
iSchool Skills in Taylor's Career
00:01:59
Speaker
So you study the information management and technology here at the iSchool. What foundations from that experience still show up in your work today? Yeah, thank you, Jeff. And again, thank you for having me on the podcast. It's an honor to be here and to support and hopefully serve the iSchool community at large.
00:02:18
Speaker
um So I think there's so many things that I learned and experienced at the iSchool that I've really carried forward into my career. um I think not only just the technical concepts that I learned in classes and the coding experience that had while serving in class, but also the ability to be able to communicate very effectively has served me quite a bit.
00:02:46
Speaker
And I think that's a very underrated um part of the curriculum that the iSchool really provided me. um We were not only learning, you know, the the hard technical skills in class, but we were also practicing our public speaking and communication skills by being being forced to public speak in class. And I think for me also serving as iSchool board of advisor for the students and being able to serve as a panelist for the It Girls Retreat Program as well um also allowed me to hone my communication skills. And I think that has really served me very incredibly in my career because a lot of
00:03:29
Speaker
my career has not only been you know supporting technology teams, but it's also been serving as that liaison between the technology organization and the business that we support to be able to translate really technical concepts into business impact so that we can share you know the huge technological impacts that we're having and how it relates to the business in which we support.
00:03:56
Speaker
So I really think that piece has really served me well. And I think in addition to that, just the the community, the close-knit community that we have in the iSchool and those connections that I've made have really served me in a lot of job opportunities and a lot of just opportunities in general, where not only you know for internships and jobs, but just also to foster you know close community and connections outside of graduating from college.
00:04:27
Speaker
For instance, like I don't think a week goes by without me communicating or connecting in person with somebody that I met either at the iSchool or Syracuse University. um that That community has been a huge impact on my career. um And so i think those three things, not only the the technical concepts, of course, and the coursework that we do, but then also the blend of the technical concepts with being able to communicate them effectively. has really served me well.
00:04:58
Speaker
You know, I love hearing that. i I love hearing that you're plugged into the alumni network. I think if there's one thing that I want to communicate to people that are thinking about the iSchool or students that are already here, it's that, look, the Syracuse alumni network is incredible and very active. And there's just all sorts of opportunities that can come there.
00:05:20
Speaker
And you know you're in some class with some person and you never know, that person may hire you someday. Exactly. So those kinds of connections are invaluable. Totally, totally.
From Fidelity to EY: Agile Methodologies
00:05:32
Speaker
So how did your career evolve from fidelity to EY and into leading digital transformation? Yeah, that's ah it's a great story. and And I've talked about it in another podcast before, but I'll try to keep this somewhat succinct and brief. But um so So upon graduating from the iSchool, I had the opportunity to work at Fidelity Investments um and go through their their BLEEP program, which was basically their kind of technology upskilling program for new graduates out of school to then be embedded within the organization. and so I was in Raleigh, North Carolina for about a year um going through that sort of post-grad upskilling program, where again, we did a lot of public speaking too. So it kind of it was like a beautiful blend and extension of like a lot of the things that we did in the iSchool, which I thought was really awesome.
00:06:24
Speaker
um And then I worked out of our Merrimack, New Hampshire office, and I did a lot of different tech had a lot of different technical roles, which really laid the foundation of like understanding like global enterprise technology.
00:06:40
Speaker
And then i was able to go into more of our product model where I was supporting applications, mobile applications in in this instance for our Fidelity Brokerage Technology Division. So I was helping build mobile applications for broker dealers and registered advisors to be able to support their clients.
00:07:03
Speaker
And so i I learned, I started off with more backend infrastructure technology, Now I'm working more client front end where we have end users that we're supporting. um And so that was a fun experience to kind of see the going from sort of that backend enterprise technology to front end. And I think in that period of time, Agile and Scrum were really hitting the scene and they they were starting to talk about it more within our organization. And I was really learning kind of what it meant to work in a
00:07:38
Speaker
product management kind of organization because, again, we had very ambitious goals. We wanted to ah be able to push and ship out features very quickly to our end users. So I felt like that was a great hands-on learning experience for learning like what it means to work in a very agile environment. So I was able from that experience to get Scrum Master certified, Product Manager certified, working with developers, business sponsors, you know, and being that liaison, kind of like what I said before, of translating what we're working on technologically to how it's going to be impacting the end users that we're supporting.
00:08:21
Speaker
So I was able to serve at Fidelity for roughly four years in that capacity.
Transition to Sanofi and AI Upskilling
00:08:26
Speaker
And then i knew i wanted to get just more experience working across, staying within the financial service industry, but working across a lot of other enterprises. And so ah that's when I made the transition to actually move into consulting and working at Ernst & Young, which also has a tremendous amount of Syracuse and iSchool graduates that work there. So I was able to really expand my
00:08:56
Speaker
you know Syracuse and iSchool network going in into EY2, some of the employees I had met while I was while i was um and attending Syracuse, but i I met so many more people that I didn't necessarily cross paths with at Syracuse. So it was really great to um feel connected back to Syracuse and feeling like you know joining this huge organization. I wasn't really alone because I had so much support from others.
00:09:26
Speaker
And so in my four or five years at EY, i was able to take a lot of the hands-on experience that I had at Fidelity and be able to scale that to other enterprises. And I think that's where I really learned about how to craft really efficient operating models because my niche at EY, not only working in our, friend supporting our financial services industry, but being a technology consultant who had actually lived and breathed and worked in an agile product organization. And a lot of organizations at that time were really trying to transform their organizations to become more of that agile scrum product organization because they wanted to be able to compete effectively in the marketplace and be able to ship out products at scale.
00:10:15
Speaker
So I was able to really leverage that hands-on experience at EY and be able to scale that out. And then towards the end of my career at e y I had been supporting at that point the financial services financial services industry for about eight to nine years. And I knew that I wanted to make a change to a different industry and see what the opportunities were there.
00:10:37
Speaker
And health and wellness and healthcare have always been a big passion of mine. So I considered moving over into you know the life sciences of pharmaceutical industry.
00:10:49
Speaker
um So at the conclusion of my time at ey I actually um decided to take a little bit of a career break to make sure you know kind of what I wanted my next step to be.
00:11:00
Speaker
And during that time, during my my brief career break, I was also able to upscale myself in AI because that's when we were having these conversations around, okay, generative AI, A lot more people were adopting ChatGBT and other GBT technologies. So I really decided to take a step back to upskill myself so that I could also be effective wherever I decided to pivot to
Designing AI Operating Models at Sanofi
00:11:25
Speaker
next. And so during that career pivot, I was able to, again, upskill myself, um take ah take take a much needed break, and then also emerge in this new opportunity that I have at Sanofi with clarity, clear mind,
00:11:41
Speaker
leveraging past experience, but also now embedding AI into my day-to-day as well. So I joined Sanofi about a year. It's almost been a year. It feels much longer just with how much fast-paced change has occurred over this past year. But I joined Sanofi and have been supporting our digital research and development division in creating a global, scalable,
00:12:04
Speaker
you know, AI forward operating model to be able to support those teams to effectively build out products to help patients. So that's that's my career journey today.
00:12:15
Speaker
So that sounds really big. Like when companies say that, that sounds massive. What's actually involved in that? And and what is your role in making that all happen?
00:12:27
Speaker
Yeah. So i when I was hired, they really liked the fact that I had worked also in a different industry too. I didn't necessarily have that legacy understanding of pharmaceutical and life sciences. And I thought initially in my career pivot, that was going to be a blocker for me to be able to go into a different industry. But I think that actually served me well, because again, I don't necessarily have that historical business context, but I have the experience of building out these operating models, again, with that agile product mindset at the heart of it, to be able to help the teams be able to organize themselves effectively. Because I think when when companies, and especially Sanofi, they talk about AI, it's really not necessarily laying AI on top of already existing systems. It's like, how do we keep AI top of mind? And how do we like almost self-organize ourselves differently so that we can leverage this incredibly powerful tool in order to enhance our processes and systems? How can we think about problems and technologies differently? on
00:13:39
Speaker
with the sole intent of always keeping in our case, the patient and patient centricity top of mind. How can we leverage AI to solve our problems? How can we, and in an ethical way too, of course, and we can probably talk a little bit about that later too, but it's like, how do we organize ourselves differently to leverage this technology for us to go faster and be able to solve our problems faster. And I've,
Mindset Shifts for AI Adoption
00:14:07
Speaker
It's insane how much has changed since, again, like I started last last year, how much has changed um within our organization and how we've organized ourselves differently, how we operate differently, and how we're just able to ship things out so much faster and at scale than we have in the past.
00:14:28
Speaker
so um So a couple of things you said. One, you talked about you talked about essentially keeping things top of mind. That's a people problem, right? Like that's not a technology problem.
00:14:40
Speaker
I'm wondering if you can, because a lot of companies are struggling with exactly this. in In a lot of cases, something has to change internally for adoption to take place. right Do you have any concrete examples of how that's being facilitated in your organizations?
00:14:59
Speaker
Yeah. For our organization, a lot of it had to do with upskilling our staff to these generative AI technologies and other AI technologies. I also think, I'll take a step back, it's also a huge mindset shift. It's not just an internal organizational change, it's an internal to the person change as well. Yeah, exactly. Because it's ai is fundamentally shifting how people view the world and see problems, that it's an internal shift and adopting kind of this digital first AI mindset to be able to adopt it easier. Because i think a lot of people are very comfortable with how things were and how things have operated in the past, that AI has been so disruptive of a technology that you almost have to take a step back and kind of go to first principles thinking and like build it up from there. First principles being like breaking something down to its like most truth point and then kind of building processes, procedures, mindsets from there. And a lot of, i think on top of that too, it's also how people show up in their day-to-day roles. um In the past, I remember when we were talking about um kind of shifting to a agile product way of working, ah the old legacy kind of operating model was more of a waterfall approach.
00:16:32
Speaker
And that was a huge in those transformations that I was supporting at Fidelity and EY, that was really all a mindset and organizational change, too, because it's a very fundamentally different mindset to work in an agile way. and being able to iterate and stop when things aren't working and reassess and measure and like adapt from there that I think it just requires people to be able to drop something that's not working very quickly and being able to pivot and shift and being okay with something not working the first time around and being able to measure what is working and kind of lean into that a bit more.
00:17:10
Speaker
So I think organizationally, we've also had to upskill people, not only on the technical technological side, but then also like, what is their role look like? A lot of people had been moving from being a project manager into more of like a product owner. What does that look like? How is that different? um What are the expectations around that role?
00:17:32
Speaker
who do Who are the new stakeholders that you work with? Do you have an understanding of what the business problem is? How does that necessarily translate to the technological products that you're supporting?
00:17:43
Speaker
are ah Are the things that we're building actually moving the needle towards our overall grand vision? So it's a lot of these different ways of thinking that I think are the hardest to overcome, not overcome, but the hardest to adopt and adapt as we move forward.
Communication in Transformational Change
00:17:59
Speaker
um And that's been, I think, the biggest struggle that I've seen um across the organization. And that's across any organization. It's a their change is happening so quickly.
00:18:10
Speaker
um the the the rate of technology and the and the different tools that are available for us to leverage, I feel like a new one pops up every day. And I think i can lean back to my consulting experience where a lot of the fundamental core things as being a consultant is like being able to ramp up and understand something really well very quickly and being able to ramp down and kind of pivot into whatever your next client assignment is too. So I think I've developed that skill set of being able to kind of ramp up and ramp down on information and being able to pivot if something's not working. And I think that's also a very entrepreneurial way of thinking about things too. My organization, I feel like we feel like a startup within this large larger global enterprise. um
00:18:59
Speaker
And I think, again, this is the mindset piece. is It's going to be challenging. And I've seen that be challenging for people. And then also in my role, how can I show up to support the organization to make sure that they have the information, the skill set, the training, the upskilling that they need in order to be effective in their roles too? Because people really, in times of change and transformation, people really lean towards clarity and direction in those moments of extreme transformation. Yeah. I'm to pause this just for a minute and close my door. Sure. go for it.
00:19:34
Speaker
They have noisy people. Yeah, we had a street sweeping earlier, so I made sure to close my window beforehand. Yeah, I should have thought of that. It's usually pretty quiet around here. It's all good.
00:19:49
Speaker
Sorry, Anya. Okay, so um
00:19:56
Speaker
I guess another thing that kind of comes to mind for me is how do you help organizations turn their blue sky thinking into clear structures, roles, and direction. Yeah.
00:20:08
Speaker
I think it really all centers back to creating a really effective operating model. Because again, we can have these large sweeping strategic directions, but it's like, that's great.
00:20:20
Speaker
How does that drill down to how does that affect people in their particular roles? So I think we do a lot of communicating to the organization through kickoffs and town halls and making sure that everyone's very clear on where the strategic direction of the company is. And then also for our organization, we also clearly explain you know what our overall goal is. And in this case, we're really, for from an R&D perspective, we're really trying to cut the drug to discovery lifecycle in half. Right now, it's around 14 years. We really want to try to get it down to seven years, which is a very ambitious goal. And we want to make sure that everybody within the organization knows that goal, know that it's you know a large ah large goal that we're marching towards. And how do we you know set up our operating model?
00:21:14
Speaker
Do you know what your overall strategy is for your particular role and your particular product line that you're supporting? And making sure that two-way communication between you know people and leadership is effective and clear so that people know what's expected of them and knowing what KPIs that they're trying to hit in order to to reach these goals, too.
00:21:38
Speaker
that's ah that's That's a massive goal. And I imagine that could save billions of dollars. And I also imagine that AI is probably pretty key in
AI Tools and Ethical Considerations
00:21:48
Speaker
that goal.
00:21:48
Speaker
Absolutely. Yes. it's Everything that we do is AI embedded and there's ai embedded in everything. um An example that I can share is we as a company um rolled out our own proprietary generative AI tool.
00:22:05
Speaker
i think it was around, it was 2025 is around like the summertime. And we wanted, it was important for the organization to do it completely in-house so that it can be totally trained in everything prop proprietary for our company and making sure that guardrails were in place, governance was in place, like all the frameworks um and all of the information within our company, was was you know the tool was trained on this to be able to support employees. And you know started working started working with it and embedding it into my day-to-day. And it's insane how um sophisticated that it has become in a very short amount of time and how much of a time saver it has been for me in the day-to-day role that I play um to help
00:22:52
Speaker
you know, with internal communications, stakeholder alignment, um you know, a first pass of a slide deck to be able to share out to executives. Like it's incredible, you know, how much it enables me to do my job better and really sharing with the organization to be able to adopt this tool effectively so that they can, you know, more of the the admin and the logisticals of their day to day can maybe be taken care of with the use of AI. so that they can focus on the science. They can focus on our goals of you know cutting this drug lifecycle in half, um keeping patient centricity top of mind as well. So it's been it's been great to see and adopt these tools so far.
00:23:38
Speaker
Yeah, so you you keep talking about ai as tools or just tools in general. And I think part of the the problem for organization is training people up on new tools. but But, you know, once you start playing with it, you start realizing other things it can do. Like we often think, okay, a screwdriver, it's for turning screws. But, you know, we also use it to pry things and to do other things with it. And so I think as people use it more and more, they're going to find more and more interesting ways to use it.
00:24:09
Speaker
Absolutely. Yeah. So a lot of people are concerned about ethics. And I'm sure that's, a I mean, you're dealing with patients, you're dealing with all sorts of things around implications that could really be harmful for folks. Yes.
00:24:25
Speaker
So talk about that and talk about how your company is thinking about that. Yeah. I mean, I've come from two now two industries that are incredibly regulated, financial services and now life sciences, pharmaceutical. And especially for for us, we're dealing with incredibly sensitive patient patient data, molecules, stuff that we're that the scientists are working on in the lab. So we have to always be incredibly thoughtful and mindful about the information that we are sharing and using and making sure that we have the proper governance and frameworks in place to make sure that you know we the the information is being used ethically, sensitively, all the things. So I feel like even before... People were upskilled on the tools that that are at their disposal to leverage in the company. There was already the governance framework in place because that's been something that I've been working on you know for for almost my entire tenure. They're making sure that the governance models are in place to make sure that you know the information is secure as well.
00:25:29
Speaker
And specifically at Sanofi, and this is public information, we have something called the RAISE framework. which again is making sure that the information is being handled in a very sensitive manner. um And before anything's deployed for production, they have to go through a very rigorous set of standards. um Procurements involved, legals involved, all of all of the major stakeholders are in place.
00:25:53
Speaker
And I think sometimes people can see those as bottlenecks. But again, it's all about having those checks and balances in place to make sure that what we're building not only is satisfying the needs of our overall mission of, you know, being being patient-centric and doing what's best for our patients, but making sure there's no long-term implications of some of these tools that we're using, both internally and externally as well. So we're we're very mindful um incredible amount of governance in place. Again, it might be seen sometimes as as a boon to to development, but again, you need to have those checks and balances in place to make sure things operate effectively.
Success Factors in Transformation Efforts
00:26:37
Speaker
Can you give us a couple of concrete examples of what kinds of things are non-negotiable? I think anything that is specific to like, that's outside of like HIPAA compliance for patient data. Like that's a huge concern and making sure that nothing that's built is any way harmful or exploitive of that sensitive information. And I think, again, because we are a global company, we also have to satisfy the requirements across multiple different countries as well. And ah for instance, like a lot of the government in Europe, like is very um sensitive to
00:27:18
Speaker
to a lot of that sharing of data and and patient data that's being shared in that compliance. So again, we have a full team that is just solely dedicated to making sure that that information stays in house.
00:27:33
Speaker
Great. Okay. So you've kind of been through a bunch of different kinds of transformational efforts. Yeah. What what makes it stick and and what kinds of things prevent it from sticking?
00:27:47
Speaker
Yeah, I think what makes it stick, and again, change of any magnitude is is challenging. You're you're rewiring from ah from a brain chemistry perspective, you're rewiring neural pathways, and that's very challenging.
00:28:00
Speaker
And it requires a lot of repetition and a lot of consistency and a lot of intention to be able to make those sorts of changes. I think aspects that make change easier is making sure that leadership is communicating clearly what the overall goals are and to making sure those goals are being cascaded down to the actual team that's boots on the ground to be able to understand what's expected of them.
00:28:27
Speaker
From past transformation efforts that I've worked on, when that bi-directional communication is not in place and there isn't psychological safety within the organization to be able to ask hard questions and to be able to pitch ideas and to be able to share concerns.
00:28:47
Speaker
I think that's when transformation really slows down because people don't feel safe to make, um, to make, um, to make mistakes and to be able to iterate and learn from them.
00:28:59
Speaker
So what we try to do within our organization is really try to establish psychological safety to be to make sure that people feel comfortable to be able to voice any concerns they have, any questions about um how we're operating and what's expected and kind of what our two-year plans are.
00:29:16
Speaker
And to be able to make sure that this information for them is also distributed effectively and that people have access to it. A lot of what I do um is to make sure my my role is almost was similar to like a chief of staff role. So making sure that the organization has all the information that they need, all the support, all the tooling that they need to be effective. And again, I think when back to communication, I think that's like the pillar of any transformation is like being able to communicate early often consistently have the same messaging because the amount of repetition that needs to happen in order for something to really stick in your brain is a high amount that most people don't realize. um And again, not everybody's capacity and appetite for changes is the same. So being able to help shepherd other people along in kind of where we're going and making sure people are bought in into what where we're going is also important too. not only the stakeholders within our technology organization, but also our business stakeholders that we support. We directly support the scientists in the lab. So making sure you know that they have everything that they need and that they feel supported and that they feel that the feedback that they're sharing with us about the technology products that we're building for their use, as because they're our main stakeholder, that they feel heard and recognized with the challenges that they have to deal with in the lab.
AI's Impact on Jobs and Personal Branding
00:30:47
Speaker
Yeah. And I imagine that AI is one of the tools that you're using frequently to help you do a lot of that communication. Yes, definitely. Yeah. And I think, and I think there's like a ah really awesome quote that's actually embedded into our generative AI tool that we use. And it's, it's AI advises, humans decide.
00:31:09
Speaker
And I think that is a beautiful representation of how I internally view ai and how to use AI. Again, AI is an incredibly powerful tool. It distills down information. It pulls information from all these different disparate siloed systems and and being able to generate insights from it. But again, at the end of the day, humans are the ones that decide what to do with that information and making sure that we always have agency and the appropriate guardrails in place to be able to ah to use it for good.
00:31:46
Speaker
Yeah, that's interesting. it It makes me also think that humans have to decide to use AI. Right. Right. Otherwise, companies aren't going to get the kind of adoption they want to. Okay, so let's talk about our students. Yep.
00:32:03
Speaker
The world is changing fast, and AI is just going to keep kind of nudging that along. um It's going to change the workforce that's going to change the kind of jobs that people have. People are going to have to be in those kind of decision roles.
00:32:18
Speaker
um And i guess I guess the question I want to ask is, if you could tell our students one thing to help them in this new environment, what would it be?
00:32:30
Speaker
I think it's really adopting a solution mindset because there's going to be so many different challenges and problems that, you know, that I faced even starting my career and working in organizations too. And I think the reason why, you know, people have enjoyed working with me, for instance, is because I always am focused on what the problem and the solution is and being able to, you know, adopt tooling, AI, whatever, effectively to be able to support me in creating that solution. and I think
00:33:05
Speaker
with the amount of change that's going on and and then what kind of this new workforce is going to look like, it's going to be you know autonomous, being people being able to leverage AI for different use cases and being able to solve the ultimate problem. And I think part of it too is also coming at things creatively and create it coming up with creative solutions.
00:33:31
Speaker
with embedding AI into those creative solutions too. So I think like the more we can also like double down on like what makes us human and what makes us creative as well to help with these problems and these solutions would also be a great mindset and skillset to adopt as well.
00:33:50
Speaker
You know, so I like what you said there. I think that a lot of people are really concerned. Like there's a lot of talk about, well there's kind of two schools of thought that I've heard. One is, um all it ai is going to ruin all white collar jobs. They're just going to all go away.
Skills for AI and Change Strategy Careers
00:34:06
Speaker
And then other people are saying, well, actually smart companies are going to find ways to use um the workforce to employ AI to become more productive so they're more competitive with other companies. yeah And I imagine your company is in the transition of figuring out figuring that out.
00:34:27
Speaker
i mean Any observations about what that looks like from your perspective? Yeah, I think the people that are going to be you know, top not only in the job market, but in these organizations are people that are able to adopt AI in their day to day as seamlessly as possible to be able to allow them to do things more quickly, efficiently, et cetera. And again, give them that time freedom back to be able to focus on cultivating cre creative solutions. And, and kind of, like I said earlier about like doubling down on like what makes them human and what makes them unique and their specific skillset and gifts.
00:35:06
Speaker
Cause everybody is, has been uniquely blessed with certain, certain gifts and almost just like lean into that more and figure out like what makes you, you and what makes you unique. Cause I think also in this AI age, and I see it a lot online, you know, i During my career pivot, I also started building like my own personal brand. It's leveraging LinkedIn as well, which I think would be another great tool for for the iSchool population to use, especially as they're emerging into the job market as well. um LinkedIn is an incredibly powerful tool. And i think the more but I think the more that everybody can double down on what makes them unique while leveraging AI and the and the the freedom and the power it gives you to be able to scale ideas, is definitely something that's going to differentiate people in the job market and beyond in the future. Okay, I'm going to change course now. Sure. um Because you you coach high-performing professional women. I do. Navigating inflection points. Talk a little bit about what what does inflection points mean in that case? And then also, because you've, it kind of looks to me like you're doing that at two different levels, like a personal level and ah and a corporate level.
00:36:22
Speaker
So what's the same and what's different? Yeah. So I think right a lot of the women that I coach right now are coming to me because they are in the middle of a career pivot, very similar to my career career pivot that I went through about a year now ago. And I think there's a lot of people that may not be the most fulfilled and purposeful in their current role. And, you know, they're hearing all this news about AI and what I said before, like AI is going to incredibly impact and change the workforce. Like, what are the things that I can do? Or how can I leverage this time to maybe switch into a different career, maybe start my own side hustle or side business um or, you know, building a personal brand on LinkedIn, et cetera. And so I think for that,
00:37:17
Speaker
again, women are coming to me really wanting that support because they've seen me be able to do that and take, you know, maybe something that wasn't as as aligned for me any longer to something that now I feel like i'm I'm thriving. I'm really enjoying what I do in my day to day. And I was able to make that pivot successfully because I think also people see how challenging shang the job market is today and how challenging it it can be to find a new role. And I think there's a lot of people um that frankly have started panicking about it. But I think back to what I said about like doubling down on like what your unique skillset is and being able to position that in the marketplace so that people can find you and and find your unique gifts and like what you bring to the table is like step number one in being able to make that overall career pivot and personal transformation pivot too. the more that you can become your most authentic aligned self too, is really, you know, it ri has ripple effect in your life and not only just in your career. Yeah, neat.
00:38:24
Speaker
Okay, so for students who want to work at the intersection of AI, which is going to be everywhere, product strategy and organizational change, ye what kinds of skills and mindset should they be holding onto to thrive in that kind of place?
00:38:40
Speaker
Yeah. I think developing solid communication skills, written, oral, over all the all the things. um I think something else that I always remember is I took a so almost like a consulting 101 class when I was in the iSchool. Professor Michelle Kars-Brown was the professor in that class. And I distinctly remember um in that class, she said,
00:39:05
Speaker
in order to be a top performer, you need to get really comfortable at being effective and working with people that you may not necessarily be co-located with.
00:39:16
Speaker
And that's, for whatever reason, that always stuck out with me, especially as, you know, the last three companies I've worked with, they're they're a global population. So being being mindful about working with people from other cultures and other countries. and being able to collaborate effectively, communicate effectively, um showcasing the work that you're doing.
00:39:38
Speaker
Because i I can't remember the last time i was physically co-located with my my direct manager um and still being able to showcase the work that I'm doing, showcase the skill set that I have.
00:39:53
Speaker
um and being able to really have impact in the organization. and you know, not again, working very closely with people who you may not necessarily be co-located with. So really getting comfortable with that reality in in today's current workforce.
00:40:08
Speaker
And I think, again, really developing a you know, problem solution mindset, developing your creativity, and again, like really turning inward and getting to know yourself and what your unique skill set is. Because I think moving forward, personal branding and being able to showcase who you are online, whether that's in, you know, a corporate sense, like on LinkedIn or just, you know, I know there's a lot of iSchoolers who also are very into entrepreneurship and you weren' wanting to work for a startup to, you know, really showcasing that personal brand because I've been able to get a lot of um opportunities from being able to have a public personal brand on online too.
00:40:50
Speaker
Yeah, I think that's really helpful. I'm looking forward to hearing what our students say about this podcast. I want to thank you for joining us today. I think we're pretty much out of time.
Conclusion and Farewell
00:41:00
Speaker
um And I hope that you and I can stay in touch.
00:41:03
Speaker
Absolutely. I guess that's it. Thank you very much. Thank you, Jeff. I really appreciate the opportunity. And I hope this podcast episode serves. so Thank you.