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Feeling shaky after maternity or another long leave from work? COMEBACK COACH is the wobbly-bottomed podcast about kickass comebacks with coaching psychologist and author, Jessica Chivers. She’s exactly what you need when you’re riding the return-to-work rollercoaster.
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Ask me a Q **Quick link to register interest in the Raising & Rising leadership retreat for mothers in senior roles in February 2026 – CPO’s and HR professionals please register and we'll be in touch about places for your senior female talent.** Hello Bright Minds, today you are going to eavesdrop on a coaching conversation with a senior woman who is 2 months back from a 10 month maternity leave who wants to show her leadership team she is committed and wants to progress. She’s the only m...
Ask me a Q Hello Bright Minds, today’s guest has had a squiggly career, graduating as a graphic designer and making it up to creative art director before moving into an MD role and then into entrepreneurship. She’s the co-founder of The Hustle Factory where she and her co-founder are disrupting the outplacement world. Outplacement is when an employer supports an employee to bounce back more quickly after redundancy, something Astrid experienced two years ago when she was made redundant from h...
Ask me a Q Hello Bright Minds, **Here's the link to register your interest and get early bird access to the exclusive gathering for 12 senior talented professional working mothers who are future Directors, MDs or Partners to help them feel equipped to take the next career step. I'm running this with Anita Cleare in 2026.** E-mail me: jc@talentkeepers.co.uk to discuss an executive coaching engagement for you or an employee/group of employees. ------------ Today's episode: Networking and busine...
Ask me a Q Hello Bright Minds, I’m trying something new for this season of the podcast and that’s to bring you a couple of expert voices on topics that are coming up in coaching conversations with the people I, and my colleagues, are coaching. Today I am bringing you a conversation with chartered psychologist Nicola Jane Hobbs who is the author of a new book, The Relaxed Woman: Reclaim Rest and Live an Empowered, Joy-Filled Life. The "GUTS" in the title is a new theory of stress, which ...
Ask me a Q Hello Bright Minds, you are in for a treat with this first episode of the new season. I am so pleased you’re here and you are about to hear a magnificent tale of grit, perseverance, honesty and so much warmth from my guest Nora Prida-Bay from Jupiter Asset Management. She had an 8-year career break and it took her 118 interviews to land a job back in banking. You are going to get the inside track on the way she approached job-hunting and how she kept going in the face of all ...
Ask me a Q Hello Bright Minds, I have a completely wonderful powerhouse for you today who returned from maternity leave eight months ago. Her dream job came up whilst she was away so she decided to return six months early and on day two of her comeback there was a wholescale restructure of the entire business which changed everything. She’s just returned from a company celebration trip to Miami in recognition of her being one of the business’ peak performers and I think you’re going to love h...
Ask me a Q Hello Bright Minds, my guest coachee today is Emilia, which isn’t her real name. She’s been an avid listener of the podcast and got in touch about having a coaching session to support her in making a lateral move in a large multinational healthcare company. Not long after we arranged to speak she e-mailed to say her line manager was going to be leaving and could we talk about how she navigates shifting from peer to boss in her current team on an interim boss. There was so much grou...
Ask me a Q Hello Bright Minds, today I’m talking to Danielle Wallington who lives in St Albans, the place I’ve called home for 23 years. Danielle was an events manager who had her flexible working request turned down after maternity leave with her first son. From that setback came her first business “Milk & Fizz” where she used to her events management skills to bring mothers together for a different type of gathering to what was on offer at the time. She’s now the founder of Flock Here –...
Ask me a Q Hello Bright Minds, my guest today is 53 year old journalist Samantha Downes, who last year took up the post of senior news reporter at The Express after many years working freelance. She joined The Express in November after specialising in pensions and investment journalism as an investigative reporter for both trade and national publications including the Financial Times, City AM, and Pensions Expert. She’s a mother of two teenage girls and writes about midlife, parenting a...
Ask me a Q Hello Bright Minds, I wonder whether you’ve seen the Netflix hit Buying London with Daniel Daggers and his team of agents at his property firm DDRE? It’s a lot of fun and very glamorous and my guest today is one of the team who you won’t have seen on screen. I met Serge Cowan on a flight to Nice last September when he was going out to look at a property in Monaco and we got into a deep conversation about his life, including his four children. Serge is a global real estate advisor a...
Ask me a Q Hello Bright Minds, today I’m talking to Baroness Helena Morrissey, ex CEO of Newton Asset Management, founder of the 30% Club and founding ambassador of AJ Bell’s Money Matters campaign to help women feel good about investing. She’s also the mother of nine children and author of A Good Time to Be a Girl. We talk about how to ask for a promotion and the power of holding silence when you do.The gender ISA gap, pensions and investing for children.Helena’s experience of returning to w...
Ask me a Q Hello Bright Minds, today I’m talking to Francesca Woodhouse who is the MD of UK Workplace Advisory at Edelman and mother of four children. She works full time and is married to Lewis who also works full time as a Head of Communications. You’re going to hear Francesca talk about: The need to proactively managing your career.Moving between freelancing and employment.Key habits that support working full time and caring for four children.The difference having a true partner at h...
Ask me a Q Hello Bright Minds, in this episode we go beyond the comeback and discuss the habits, resources, ways of working and ways of thinking that help support career development when you have young children. We recorded this episode in front of a live audience at Arcadis, London - one of our treasured clients. My guests are all professional women who have 13 children between them and they've all previously been on the podcast. They were tremendously candid for which I am truly grateful. E...
Ask me a Q Hello Brights Minds, I’ve been thinking a lot about displays of emotions at work because of the increasing number of women I’ve been coaching over the last 12 months who’ve described being taken by surprise by their tears and worrying about the implications. It tuns out there’s some pretty complex psychology at play when it comes to how crying at work can potentially affect our reputation. I’m Jessica Chivers, a psychologist and executive coach. For the last 20 years I’ve been coac...
Ask me a Q Hello Bright Minds, my guest coachee today is Amber (not her real name), a past coachee of mine who I worked with years and years ago and is now on the brink of making a second career change. She wanted to have a space to think about how to navigate relationships with different organisations that she’s in parallel recruitment processes with. Over the years I’ve had the pleasure of working with coachees years down the line after their first coaching engagement and it’s so wonderful ...
Ask me a Q Hello Bright Minds, I am really happy to be back with a very vibrant episode to kick off season eight where Marketing Director Caroline Smith from the toy shop, The Entertainer talk about: Making sideways and strategic ‘downward’ career moves.Finding unexpected fresh drive and ambition after maternity leave.Job search challenges and strategies.Being the wildcard candidate.Nourishing your professional network.Using LinkedIn to showcase your expertise.Discipline and structure during ...
Ask me a Q Hello Bright Minds, keen eyes might notice that this episode is out a day earlier than usual. I’ve chosen to release this episode of Tuesday 3rd December to tie-in with International Day of Person’s with a Disability. And it feels fitting to have saved this episode to the last in the current season on COMEBACK COACH because we’re talking about the power of a sabbatical to refresh, re-energise and have a bit of a rest, which I hope you’ll get later in the month. My guest today...
Ask me a Q Hello Bright Minds, This is the penultimate episode of season seven of COMEBACK COACH and it’s inspired by my 16 year old daughter Artemis, who wants to become a pilot. This is something she decided upon at the start of the year and since then I have had many happy drives around the M25 to Heathrow airport to watch A380 planes come in and take off this year. Plane spotting is actually a lot of fun. My guest today is Rebecca Andrews is a pilot and a few months ago she returned to ...
Ask me a Q Hello Bright Minds, my conversation today is with Laura Scougall, Head of ITV Academy. Knowing Laura is a chatty, confident person we decided to make it a freeform conversation without any pre-agreed questions so it’s a bit of a random episode that covers a lot of ground. We talked about: How to get back to sleep after being up with a baby or an 18 year old in my case.Coping with being placed at risk of redundancy and dragged out of your maternity bubble to think about finding anot...
Ask me a Q Hello Bright Minds, my guest today is Sarah Banks from Arcadis, the global design and engineering company. Sarah has two little children and was promoted after both of her maternity leaves. We have a wide-ranging conversation including: Challenges and benefits of after work socialising.KIT days.Being the main earner in her family.Being surprised by feeling a drop in confidence.Worrying about not being able to do her job when she came back. The shadow boar...
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