On this episode of “B The Way Forward,” host Brenda Darden Wilkerson sits down with career coach and DEI professional, Aaron Fung, to talk about balancing your personal passions with your career goals. Aaron’s career coaching business, CoachingAF, helps people find a career path that actually resonates with them. As someone who moved around jobs and industries in the past, Aaron hopes to help others feeling the same way he did – stuck or lost – to find their true passions.

Brenda and Aaron open up about the valuable information they’ve both gleaned from trying work in different spaces that didn’t suit their personal goals. Plus, Aaron shares some of his career coaching advice like the powerful questions he asks to get his clients thinking more deeply: “How did you get into your first job?” “What do you really want from work?” Aaron, who once thought he’d be working in financial planning forever, also talks about his latest role at startup company, Crew, where he focuses on coaching operations and business development. Brenda and Aaron also discuss how personal family experience impacts what they do in the workplace. Aaron was previously a diversity and inclusion manager at Pinterest, and he’s passionate about bringing inclusivity into all the new work that he does.

“If you can have some perspective to help people who are in a different identity segment, you are establishing your character as recognizing that there are differences in the ways people are perceived. And, we should do better to open the doors wider. So that more underrepresented founders can have that chance to get funded because their idea really could be world changing.”

For more, check out Aaron...

On LinkedIn - /aaronlfung, /coachingaf and /inclusionaf

On Instagram - @goseetheworldfung/

On the Web - coachingaf.com and aaronfung.me

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At AnitaB.org, we envision a future where the people who imagine and build technology mirror the people and societies for whom they build it. Find out more about how we support women, non-binary individuals, and other underrepresented groups in computing, as well as the organizations that employ them and the academic institutions training the next generations.

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Our guests contribute to this podcast in their personal capacity. The views expressed in this interview are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology or its employees (“AnitaB.org”). AnitaB.org is not responsible for and does not verify the accuracy of the information provided in the podcast series. The primary purpose of this podcast is to educate and inform. This podcast series does not constitute legal or other professional advice or services.

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B The Way Forward Is…

Produced by Dominique Ferrari and Paige Hymson

Sound design and editing by Neil Innes and Ryan Hammond 

Mixing and mastering by Julian Kwasneski 

Associate Producer is Faith Krogulecki

Executive Produced by Dominique Ferrari, Stacey Book, and Avi Glijansky for Riveter Studios and Frequency Machine 

Executive Produced by Brenda Darden Wilkerson for AnitaB.org

Podcast Marketing from Lauren Passell and Arielle Nissenblatt with Riveter Studios and Tink Media in partnership with Carolyn Schneller and Coley Bouschet at AnitaB.org

Photo of Brenda Darden Wilkerson by Mandisa Media Productions

For more ways to be the way forward, visit AnitaB.org