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Coming back from a career break

A conversation with Pamela Redman Satran, author of Younger
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If you’re in your 40s or older, and you had a chance to live and work as if you were in your 20s again, would you do it?

Pamela Redmon Satran (Photo: Gregg Vigliotti)

That train of thought led Pamela Redmond Satran to write Younger, the New York Times best-selling novel in which a woman in her 40s poses as a 20-something to get a job at a publishing company. The novel was made into a TV series starring Sutton Foster and Hilary Duff, which was just renewed for its seventh season.

I am a big fan of both the novel and the TV show — and all the women involved — so it was a great joy to talk with Pamela about the ideas behind the story and how it has transformed over the years.

At the heart of the show is an issue that many older women, and men, are going through now as technology continues to change the nature of work: How do you get back into the workforce if you’ve taken a break from your career, say to raise a child or care for an ailing relative?

In Younger, Liza doesn’t have enough experience and perceived skills on her resume to get a senior-level job and no one wants to hire her as an assistant in order for her to acquire both because they see her as too old to be an assistant (She’s only in her early 40s!).

Ramona Schindelheim interviewing Pamela Redmon Satran, author of Younger (Photo: WorkingNation)

Skills gap, experience, the authentic you, transformation, ageism… and so much more… is jammed into this latest episode of Work in Progress.

We hope you enjoy the conversation. We certainly did.

And remember, Work in Progress is available wherever you get your podcasts. Subscribe!

Team Charles.

Follow Work in Progress, Pamela Redmond Satran, and Younger on Twitter.

Episode 111: Coming Back to the Workforce After a Career Break
Host: Ramona Schindelheim, WorkingNation Editor-in-Chief
Producer: Anny Celsi
Executive Producers: Joan Lynch, Melissa Panzer, and Ramona Schindelheim
Music: Composed by Lee Rosevere and licensed under CC by 4.0.

You can check out all the other podcasts at this link: Work in Progress podcasts

Dana Beth Ardi

Executive Committee

Dana Beth Ardi, PhD, Executive Committee, is a thought leader and expert in the fields of executive search, talent management, organizational design, assessment, leadership and coaching. As an innovator in the human capital movement, Ardi creates enhanced value in companies by matching the most sought after talent with the best opportunities. Ardi coaches boards and investors on the art and science of building high caliber management teams. She provides them with the necessary skills to seek out and attract top-level management, to design the ideal organizational architectures and to deploy people against strategy. Ardi unearths the way a business works and the most effective way for people to work in them.

Ardi is an experienced business executive and senior consultant who leverages business organizational transformation through talent strategies. She uses her knowledge and experience to develop talent strategies to enhance revenue and profit contributions. She has a deep expertise in change management and organizational effectiveness and has designed and built high performance cultures. Ardi has significant experience in mergers, acquisitions, divestitures, IPO’s and turnarounds.

Ardi is an expert on the multi-generational workforce. She understands the four intersecting generations of workers coming together in contemporary companies, each with their own mindsets, leadership and communications styles, values and motivations. Ardi is sought after to assist companies manage and thrive by bringing the generations together. Her book, Fall of the Alphas: How Beta Leaders Win Through Connection, Collaboration and Influence, will be published by St. Martin’s Press. The book reflects Ardi’s deep expertise in understanding organizations and our changing society. It focuses on building a winning culture, how companies must grow and evolve, and how talent influences and shapes communities of work. This is what she has coined “Corporate Anthropology.” It is a playbook on how modern companies must meet challenges – culturally, globally, digitally, across genders and generations.

Ardi is currently the Managing Director and Founder of Corporate Anthropology Advisors, LLC, a consulting company that provides human capital advisory and innovative solutions to companies building value through people. Corporate Anthropology works with organizations, their cultures, the way they grow and develop, and the people who are responsible for forming their communities of work.

Prior to her position at Corporate Anthropology Advisors, Ardi served as a Partner/Managing Director at the private equity firms CCMP Capital and JPMorgan Partners. She was a partner at Flatiron Partners, a venture capital firm working with early state companies where she pioneered the human capital role within an investment portfolio.

Ardi holds a BS from the State University of New York at Buffalo as well as a Masters degree and PhD from Boston College. She started her career as professor at the Graduate Center at Fordham University in New York.