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Joanna Campbell-Meiklejohn has had a varied career, spanning different sectors and countries. She spent the first part of her career working in Corporate and Investment Banking and after her second child, decided to leave banking and return to the UK to spend time with her young family. During this period, she set up and ran a successful property business in the Cotswolds where she lived which gave her a whole host of additional transferable skills and experience.
However, during COVID and the slowdown in this sector, she took the opportunity to rethink what she wanted to do professionally and decided to retrain as a financial planner through the St James Place Financial Adviser Academy.
In our conversation, Joanna talks about the importance of reflecting on what’s important to you professionally and talking that through with others – to get clearer on what your options are and how you can go about exploring them.
We chat through the mental barriers we often create for ourselves and the need to tackle those head-on so that they don’t stop us from taking action, “You’ve done it before, you can do it again. These skills don’t go anywhere. They are embedded… they do come back to you, and you have to trust yourself.
Hear how Joanna navigated a career change and successfully began her next career chapter as a qualified financial planner.
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For advice, support, opportunities, and connection, see our Career Returners website: https://bit.ly/3eAhKQH
For more details about the St James Place Financial Advisor Academy: sjp.co.uk/academy
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In this final extended episode of Series 2, Karen and Liz chat to Caroline Deodhar who qualified as a doctor in the UK in 2013. She practiced medicine for a couple of years and began her GP training, just as her husband was offered a job opportunity in Singapore. Pregnant with her 1st child, the family took the decision to relocate to Singapore after the baby was born. They then later moved again to Australia where Caroline had her 2nd child.
After a career break of 3 years, Caroline felt ready to return to medical practice. She found the career break helped build her confidence and gave her clarity and focus about her career direction in medicine. She reached out to contacts and was successful in securing a ‘Return to Practice’ Plan that enabled her to resume her career in Australia, “I became so much more confident than I ever was before….I became much more willing to try new things. And I learned a lot about myself and that’s definitely helped with planning my career going forwards”.
After two years of not seeing her family over the pandemic, Caroline chose to return back to the UK and has now happily resumed retraining as a GP.
At the end of this conversation, Karen and Liz chat over the key themes that emerged for them over this Series. These include gratitude for the career break; valuing the skills, strengths and experiences developed during your career break; taking time to reflect on what you might do next; and creating an action plan to help you get there which may include upskilling, volunteering, and networking. They reference earlier episodes in the Series, so do listen back if you’ve missed them!
Thanks so much for joining us on the Career Returners podcast and we wish you the very best of luck with your return to work!
Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3v9INYz
Follow for free on Spotify: https://spoti.fi/30rZZL6
For advice, support, opportunities, and connection, see our Women Returners website: https://bit.ly/3eAhKQH
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Marianna Dooley is an experienced marketing professional who has built a successful career in marketing and brand management. Her experience lies within fast moving consumer goods, working with brands such as Waterford Crystal and Premier Foods. She thrived on the pace, challenge, relationship building, and international travel in an ever changing exciting career.
In 2009, Marianna took a 13 year career break to raise her young family and relocated many times during this period to support her husband’s specialist medical career – 20 times in as many years to London, Ireland and Australia.
As an expat in a new country, Marianna shares the challenges of uprooting her life, often with very little notice, and trying to build a new life in a new country with 3 young children in tow. She talks of how her professional skills came into play in helping her to manage these moves – research, planning, project managing and networking – and how reaching out to others in her new destination helped her to learn from their lived experience and smoothed the transition.
Once back home in Dublin and ready to resume her professional career, Marianna proactively reached out to people she’d been in touch with before her career break and took steps to get professionally and personally ready for her return. On a professional level she upskilled, and on a personal level she got fit and healthy, helping to ensure her return to work would be sustainable. “I do feel a big part is not just being professionally ready. I think that part is actually not as important as being personally ready and in the head space to really assess why it is you want to work and what it is you’re looking to get from work”
Marianna found success through the Deloitte Ireland Returnship Programme.
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For advice, support, opportunities, and connection, see our Women Returners website: https://bit.ly/3eAhKQH
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Hellen Muthoni Vostatkova is an experienced IT professional having worked across tech and change management programmes in Kenya, Southern Sudan, Germany and now the UK.
In 2010 Hellen decided to further her education and relocated to Germany to study for a Masters in Distributed Systems Engineering. During this time she also pursued a passion for cloud computing and worked part time on some projects to build her experience in this area. She took a career break in 2012 to raise her son, during which time she completed her Masters, and the family relocated to London in 2016.
Once she’d made the decision to return to work in 2018, Hellen found finding work difficult. She applied for a few roles but got nowhere and found the experience demoralising. As well as helping her husband establish his business at this time, she decided to increase her chances of returning to work by brushing up on her tech skills and building her transferable skills through volunteering. In 2021 she secured a place on the FDM returner programme and has continued to work as an IT consultant with FDM ever since.
In our conversation, Hellen shares how she prepared practically for her return to work, getting ahead on family activities at the weekend and not overcommitting herself outside of work to help give her space to settle into her new role. “There’s always new challenges, especially in the workplace and also at home as well….it’s just trying to make that balance and to just keep going with the flow and adapting, making the best of the situation”.
This is our last episode of 2022 – join us again on Wednesday 18 January for our next episode in this series.
Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3v9INYz
Follow for free on Spotify: https://spoti.fi/30rZZL6
For advice, support, opportunities, and connection, see our Women Returners website: https://bit.ly/3eAhKQH
For details on the FDM returner programme, see here
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Harriet Rogers qualified in the RAF in 2006, working as an Air Operations (Systems) Manager. She took her 1st career break in 2013 after the birth of her children and her 2nd career break in 2017 after she left the military and moved to the Middle East with her husband’s work.
Unable to work there, she kept herself busy studying for a Masters in Terrorism, Crime and Global Security and upskilling. When she was ready to return to work, she began to proactively explore how the areas she was interested in academically might fit with work opportunities. She took advantage of the many events taking place online which she could attend to build her subject knowledge as well as her understanding of different organisational cultures and values to get a feel for what might be a good fit for her.
Crucially, Harriet reached out to people. In our conversation, Harriet shares how contacting the presenter of one of the online events she attended ultimately led to her new role at BAE Systems as Head of Cyber Security, Governance and Standards “Definitely reach out. People are so happy to share and that’s a really invaluable resource. And as you say, it can just lead you down little alleyways that you never expected”.
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For advice, support, opportunities, and connection, see our Women Returners website: https://bit.ly/3eAhKQH
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Claire Neuman is an experienced banking and consulting leader with a background in Financial Services, Commercial Banking and Financial Technology, built over her years working in Asia and the US.
Married to a diplomat, living and working in different countries has become an intrinsic part of Claire’s life. Over the course of her career, Claire has taken 2 career breaks after the birth of each of her children and in 2020, she successfully returned to work in New York through the J.P. Morgan global ReEntry Program.
A key theme emerging from our conversation with Claire is the importance of aligning your interests and values with an organisation that shares those values. Hear Claire talk about the importance of organisational culture to her and in particular one that values diversity and inclusion, “It’s so important to have a fit between what your personal values are and where you’re going to end up working – if there isn’t that fit, then it’s just not going to work”. Claire also shares some very valuable tips about staying up-to-date during a career break, the practical steps she took as she planned her return to work, and the milestone checks she set for herself to acknowledge her progress and keep moving forward.
Click here for more info about the J.P. Morgan global ReEntry Program 2023 – applications are open until 28 January 2023.
Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3v9INYz
Follow for free on Spotify: https://spoti.fi/30rZZL6
For advice, support, opportunities, and connection, see our Women Returners website: https://bit.ly/3eAhKQH
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This episode, we’re delighted to bring you our first conversation with a male returner. Derek White enjoyed a fascinating and varied career which equipped him with a broad mix of people, business, technical, marketing, procurement, and project management skills.
After making the decision to follow his wife’s diplomatic career, Derek took a career break of 7 years to care for their young family when they relocated to Canada. He describes this period as a precious time in his life and talks about the valuable transferable skills he gained through various entrepreneurial projects, despite the career sacrifices he made due to the interruption in his career trajectory.
As the children grew older and the family relocated to London, Derek decided the time was right to return to work. The route back to work was not easy though, with ‘confidence destroying’ rejections before finding success.
Hear how Derek secured a 3-month returnship which gave him valuable experience and networks in a new country, and then went on to find a fulfilling role at the Department for International Trade. In our conversation, Derek talks of the value you build through all the activities you do throughout your career and career break; “I have definitely found that being a bit older and having a broad background, I can add in many different ways”.
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For advice, support, opportunities, and connection, see our Women Returners website: https://bit.ly/3eAhKQH
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Helen Tunstall enjoyed a very successful career in banking, firstly in Australia and then in the UK. In 2015 she took the leap to leave her corporate life and pursue her passion for the creative industries.
She took a career break to set up a successful photography business which she loved. However, after 5 years, she began to miss the intellectual challenge of corporate work. “I really miss talking about finance and economics…..I realised I missed that part of me, which was 20 years of my life”.
In our conversation, Helen talks of her pride in taking a career break to pursue her creative ambition and build a successful business. Hear how she found her route back to corporate life through Moody’s Re-Ignite returner programme and how she was able to bring a whole host of new skills developed during her break to her new role as Associate Director within the Customer Services Management team.
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For advice, support, opportunities, and connection, see our Women Returners website: https://bit.ly/3eAhKQH
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This episode is dedicated to our much-missed colleague Liz Mason, Women Returners Client Director from 2018, who died suddenly in February 2022.
Juhi is an experienced Technology Consultant. Having spent her early career working in technology roles in India, she relocated to the UK in 2010, continuing her career at the same international company. Juhi decided to seek out more flexibility, and after a period of consulting, she took a three-year career break to spend more time with her young son.
She credits this time with equipping her with many transferable skills including boosting her communication skills and problem-solving ability, key areas which have been immensely valuable on her return to work.
In our conversation, Juhi talks about the importance of self-belief as you return to work, something which was boosted after attending London Business School’s Returner Event (organised by Liz Mason in a previous role). Here, Juhi heard different women discussing the ‘game changing’ emotional and other benefits of returning to work.
“If you don’t believe in yourself, then no one will. You’ve got to feel from within that you can do it … otherwise it’s not going to work.”
Hear how Juhi navigated her own return to work as an analyst through Fidelity’s New Horizons Returner Programme in 2019, how her professional confidence has soared over the last few years and how she has continued to protect precious family time.
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For advice, support, opportunities, and connection, see our Women Returners website: https://bit.ly/3eAhKQH
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Aliaa Hajjeah is a qualified Civil Engineer who built a successful career in construction before her career break. Originally from Iraq, Aliaa lived and worked in Iraq under the backdrop of war, an experience she speaks of movingly and one which helped build her resilience and ultimately her positive outlook on life.
After the war, she moved to London for work, and met her husband. Together they moved to Dubai with his work, and Aliaa then took a 10 year career break to raise their 3 girls.
On moving back to the UK, Aliaa looked to return to her professional career but encountered many obstacles and rejections along the way.
In our conversation, Aliaa talks about how in the midst of all the rejections she considered settling for lower skilled roles, but found the inner strength to keep driving forward for the right role, “Surround yourself with the right people…who really care for you, they will remind you you’ve done this before, you lived in a war …all of these things …were like a wakeup…I shouldn’t give up…it’s not so hard”.
Hear how Aliaa rebuilt her confidence and found the strength to stay focussed on finding her perfect role as Senior Project Controls Engineer with Skanska Costain STRABAG Joint Venture working on behalf of HS2.
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For advice, support, opportunities, and connection, see our Women Returners website: https://bit.ly/3eAhKQH
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Tamara Patera is an experienced Equity Market professional. Italian-born and raised in Zurich, Tamara spent her career travelling extensively across Europe, enjoying using her language skills and working across different cultures.
Based in Paris since 2007, Tamara continued to work in London and Paris for a number of years before taking a 7 year career break to raise her 2 children. She credits that time as one that she cherishes, as well as being one where she developed many transferable skills.
In our conversation, Tamara talks about the power of networks and their contribution to her professional success throughout her career, and particularly their pivotal role in her successful return to work in 2020. “Make yourself visible if you know you want to go back to work…I think it’s important to be quite strategic about it and tell people otherwise they wont be thinking of you…for opportunities”
Hear how Tamara approached her return, developed a proactive and positive mindset, and set herself regular goals to keep moving forward in her search.
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For advice, support, opportunities, and connection, see our Women Returners website: https://bit.ly/3eAhKQH
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Welcome back to series 2 of the Career Returners Podcast!
In this series, Karen and Liz from Women Returners chat to a wide range of returners, who are now happily back at work both in the UK and abroad, after taking long career breaks.
From a banker to an engineer to a doctor, these fantastic returners share the ups and downs of their return to work stories and give practical advice to inspire other career returners.
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“Have faith in yourself – remember your professional skills and strengths are still there, and your time on your career break will have added a wide range of transferable skills that will be enormously valued when you return to work.”
In this final episode of the series, Anna & Karen reflect on the inspirational stories they’ve heard over the series and weave together the main themes of the Return to Work journey, from when you first start thinking about returning to work, to how you might map your path back, the areas to consider whilst actively looking for work and how to navigate the early days once you’re back. An episode packed full of advice, tips and reflections to help you on your return-to-work journey.
“Be proactive and positive …take action and create your own networks, conversations and opportunities and try to stay optimistic that things will work out ok in the end.”
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For advice, support, opportunities, and connection, see our Women Returners website: https://bit.ly/3eAhKQH
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Adriana Ennab enjoyed a varied and successful career in investment banking, working in New York, London and Tokyo in her early career. She took a 16 year career break from banking during which time she not only brought up her 3 children but also seized the opportunity to set up her own businesses, enjoy higher education again as well as explore other interests such as the arts, yoga and drumming!
But after 16 years away from investment banking, Adriana began to miss her old professional career and looked for ways to return. She found her route back in via Credit Suisse’s Returner programme ‘Real Returns’, and encouraged to explore different opportunities during the programme, she moved into a new area in public policy. Six years later, Adriana’s career has continued to flourish and she is now Director of Public Policy with a strong advocacy focus on Digital and Innovation areas. “Understand it is never a straight path. And the best outcomes that I've had is because I did not say this is how I wanted to be”.
Hear Adriana’s inspiring story and how as a strong believer in championing other women, she also mentors other women returners joining Credit Suisse, and helps them to navigate their own return to work.
Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3v9INYz
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For advice, support, opportunities, and connection, see our Women Returners website: https://bit.ly/3eAhKQH
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Chief Inspector Georgia Williams joined the Met Police in 1997, and enjoyed a hugely fulfilling career, where she felt like she was really making a difference. She was promoted twice, to Sergeant and then Inspector, before she took a career break in 2011 after the birth of her first child.
During a 5-year career break, Georgia had a second child and also took on a local job as a School Chaplain, a flexible role she really enjoyed where she could use her transferable skills from policing. Thinking this would be her new path going forwards, she was surprised to receive a call from the Superintendent, inviting her to come to an open day to hear about a Met Police ‘Return to Policing’ programme which ran in 2020. She went along out of interest, and as she stepped into Scotland Yard, describes feeling as if she had ‘come home’.
“I feel really fulfilled in the role that I'm doing …. I'm proud of my job. I'm proud to put that uniform on ... the first time I put it back on after I came back, I bristled with pride.”
Hear how Georgia found her way back to her career and, just 15 months later, was delighted to be promoted to Chief Inspector.
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For advice, support, opportunities, and connection, see our Women Returners website: https://bit.ly/3eAhKQH
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Trained as a civil engineer, Bhavna started her career in India as an IT developer and network engineer. She came to the UK in 2003 with her husband and after the birth of her daughter, took a career break to spend more time with her. But as time passed, Bhavna needed to get back to work for financial reasons, and so, whilst her daughter was young, she looked for a different type of role that would give her more flexibility and retrained as a teacher.
However, as the years passed, Bhavna missed her career in IT and spurred on by her daughter to look for the work that she loved, she searched for opportunities to return. Racked with doubt as to whether she would be able to catch up with all the developments in the sector during her time out, Bhavna enrolled on some free online courses and read widely to try and boost her confidence and update herself.
After 9 years out of IT, the opportunity came in the form of Next’s Back to IT programme, and 15 months later, Bhavna’s been promoted to a QA Analyst and is flourishing in her role.
“The core skills will never go away from you. So keep on, be positive. Don't wait for the perfect job ….get your foot into the door and then you can look around once you’re inside”
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For advice, support, opportunities, and connection, see our Women Returners website: https://bit.ly/3eAhKQH
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Dr Tzany Kokalova Wheldon enjoyed an impressive early career in academia, gaining a doctorate in Natural Sciences and working in nuclear physics in Germany. Following the tragic loss of her unborn son at 5 months, a harrowing experience that Tzany describes as shaping her life going forwards, she decided to take an extended career break after the birth of her twin boys a few years later, so that she could dedicate time to being with them during their early years.
When her boys were 3, she decided the time was right to return to her career but found that the gap in her CV meant that she kept getting pipped at the post at the final round. Her bridge back came in the form of the Daphne Jackson Fellowship, a 2 year part time programme supporting researchers to return to work after a career break for family, caring or health reasons.
Today, Tzany is a Reader in Nuclear Physics and works as Director of the Positron Imaging Centre at the University of Birmingham. In 2020, she won a Timewise Power Returner Award, celebrating her ability to combine career success at a senior level whilst working flexibly. “The biggest thing is to show that even after a three and a half year career break, you can go back to lead, lead the field, and do research like the colleagues around you”
Hear how Tzany found her way back to her career as a nuclear physicist, balancing time to be with her precious boys with leading once again in her field, as well as helping other women return to their careers in science.
Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3v9INYz
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For advice, support, opportunities, and connection, see our Women Returners website: https://bit.ly/3eAhKQH
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Laura Murphy is an experienced programme manager in the tech sector, with a background in management consultancy at Accenture. She loved the variety, intensity and challenge of management consultancy but after the birth of her first child, took a career break to enjoy life at home with her new baby. What she initially thought might be a 2-year career break turned into 9 years, as her second child came along, and Laura took the time to support her daughter’s learning needs as well as settle her younger son into school.
During her career break, Laura became involved in volunteering and charity work, which helped to rebuild her professional identity and give her valuable transferable skills for when she was ready to return to her professional career. In 2018, she joined Sky via their Returner Programme as Group Strategy Manager within their data technology and analytics team, then moved into a Programme Manager role, leading a large-scale business transformation. She credits her career break for helping her grow her resilience, patience, empathy and emotional intelligence, all strengths that have helped her to become ‘10 times’ the manager she was, and to empower and lead her new teams more effectively: “Parenthood is a huge part of that and why I'm successful in the job that I do today.” In 2020, Laura won a Timewise Power 50 2020 ‘Power Returner’ award, celebrating her achievement of working flexibly in a senior leadership role.
Hear how Laura found her way back to work, built up her confidence to make that application to Sky and became a fulfilled working parent.
Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3v9INYz
Follow for free on Spotify: https://spoti.fi/30rZZL6
For advice, support, opportunities, and connection, see our Women Returners website: https://bit.ly/3eAhKQH
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Yemi Morgan-Raiwe is an experienced strategic project manager with a background in engineering. After relocating from Nigeria to the UK in 2001, Yemi moved into economic development and built a fulfilling career working in regeneration. She took a 5 year career break to look after an elderly relative and to foster, and also took the opportunity whilst on her career break to set up her own organic food manufacturing business! But after a few years, she realised that as good as she was at making food, her sales skills did not match up, and the time was right to look to return to her former career.
However, Yemi found that the gap on her CV had become a barrier to finding work, and after a number of months out of work, found that this had began to take a real toll on her mental health. And then by chance, Yemi came across an e-newsletter from Enfield Council where she learned of their Returner Programme, and happily Yemi’s return to work journey began to take shape. When she saw the role offered, she felt that “It was everything that I wanted to do, everything that I like to do and everything that I was good at doing”. Four years later, and Yemi is flourishing back at work at Enfield Council, managing a project to build 10,000 homes for people to live and thrive.
Hear how Yemi found her way back to work, conquered her doubts and found her sense of purpose again through her work, “It was like coming home because the work I was supposed to be doing finally aligned with my values”.
If you need support with your mental health, see Mind for where to seek help
Subscribe on Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3v9INYz
Follow on Spotify: https://spoti.fi/30rZZL6
For advice, support, opportunities and connection, see our Women Returners website: https://bit.ly/3eAhKQH
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Melissa Janvier is an experienced US lawyer with a background in financial services and public law. After relocating with her family to the UK in 2014 for her husband’s work, Melissa took a career break to settle her 3 young children into their new life. When her youngest started school, she decided the time was right to return to work but found the route back to law far more challenging than she initially imagined.
After a friend told her about Women Returners, Melissa was excited to discover that the Bank of England was advertising opportunities to return to law as part of their wider returnship programme. She describes the joy of finding an opportunity that valued the skills and experiences she had gained during her career with an employer that recognised that her career break didn’t make her “any less of a lawyer”.
She joined the 2019 programme and in March 2020, just as the UK went into its 1st lockdown, Melissa successfully completed her returnship and was offered a permanent role as Legal Counsel. Hear how Melissa navigated her return to work, in a new country with few networks and little support, and brought her transferable legal skills to the Bank of England.
"I've settled into work in a way where, professionally, I feel like I am constantly learning and stretching and building my professional knowledge in a way that I hadn't envisioned before my career break."
Subscribe on Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3v9INYz
Follow on Spotify: https://spoti.fi/30rZZL6
For advice, support, opportunities and connection, see our Women Returners website: https://bit.ly/3eAhKQH
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