Nonlinear

This week on Career Paths with Teal, Dave Fano chats with Evelyn Lee, Senior Experience Designer

at Slack; whose career journey has been far from linear. She discusses her journey into architecture, from drawing a floor plan in the fourth grade to now being on the board of the American Institute of Architects. Evelyn addresses transitioning roles and also provides words of advice for those who may want to switch fields and ...

In this episode of Career Paths with Teal, Dave Fano chats with Jason Shah, Product Lead at Airbnb. Jason began his career by launching his own company at just 15 years old, but has a surprising bit of advice for anyone with an entrepreneurial spirit: don't be afraid to work for someone else. Reflecting on his own career path, which includes years spent at companies like Microsoft and Amazon, he says it is important to tre...

In this episode of Career Paths with Teal, Dave Fano chats with Stephanie Manning Cohen, Senior Director of Platform at Lerer Hippeau, a venture capital firm. When Stephanie landed this role, she said she found her dream job and speaks about the significance of gaining clarity in your career to yield success. Through her own experience, Stephanie identifies the questions one should ask when considering a new role and compa...

In this episode of Career Paths with Teal, guest co-host Erik Martin chats with Kevin Varadian, VP at Cutover and former VP of North American Sales at WeWork, who has one main goal and priority: to fail more often and frequently. By revisiting the earlier years of his career, he explains how failures can be reframed and used to help you maximize your career. With a strong focus on sales, Kevin marks the distinction between...

In this episode of Career Paths with Teal, Dave Fano chats with Craig Robinson, who successfully transitioned from tech consulting to real estate about the power of positive thinking, the importance of mentors and the key elements needed to change course in your career. From practical advice to spiritual insights, Craig Robinson pulls from his own experience to provide guidance into ways one can pivot professionally withou...

David Fano talks with Mary Jantsch, People Operations & Remote Work Consultant on a variety of topics related to today's workforce. Together, they discuss how the hiring process is changing as more and more people work from home. They explain the importance of sharpening your communications skills in this remote environment and discuss the distinctions between Human Resources and People Operations. Additionally, they a...

Dave Fano talks with Jeff Bussgang, general partner at Flybridge about evaluating startups both as an investor and an employee. When it comes to a startup, the focus is almost always on the founder ... but together, David Fano and Jeff Bussgang explore the roles and significance of the "joiners." The joiners are the ones that come onboard a company shortly after its conception and often become a tremendous and vital part o...

Alexa Meyer, the Co-Founder and CEO of Coa, has approached her career from the mindset of wanting to build something herself someday. Early in her career, she was recruited into a sales role, which later led her to work for Interbrand, the world’s largest brand strategy company. That experience gave her an understanding of how Fortune 500 companies build brands and marketing strategies that keep them relevant in our consta...

Shay Loko began her professional life pursuing a law degree because it made sense to her—but near completion of the degree, she realized what she actually wanted was something that would help her create connections through her day-to-day life. From sales to a consulting job out of Ireland, to where she is now as a senior account manager in a tech company helping others find jobs in their fields of passion, she’s learned th...

After graduating from college with a degree in English, Natalie Sportelli took on a series of internships—most notably at Forbes, where she later accepted a full-time position as an editor (and the first under the age of 30). She found herself especially inspired by founders and startups and got to work more directly with them when she moved from journalism to venture capital. Through multiple career pivots, she has had to...

Laura Brounstein is a storyteller, having taken up a deep interest in stories through books and other mediums from a young age. She found her way to her career path through politics, television, magazines, real estate—and now tech. Her life’s through-line is that she was able to propel herself from editing stories to helping brands (and even presidential campaigns) find unique, fresh ways to tell their stories. Join Laura ...

Sally Rogers has gone through multiple major career shifts in her professional life—from academia to banking, consulting, and, most recently, entrepreneurship. Through it all, she began to understand her own interests and motivations, and began to see building a career as an effort existing in tandem with self-exploration. Through this introspection, she ended up leaving behind the corporate world and creating her first st...

Rebekah Bastian, the Co-Founder and CEO of OwnTrail, started off her professional life with a mechanical engineering degree because she wanted to be an inventor. She ended up realizing it wasn’t what she expected, and later got a job with Microsoft as a program manager. After about three years there, she sought something different from a large, corporate environment. That’s how she ended up at a new startup called Zillow, ...

After graduating with a psychology degree, Lara Perlstein wasn’t really sure where to go next. She decided to take a job in retail and worked her way up to store manager. Over the next few years, she worked multiple different jobs as office managers and administrative assistants, believing that all of the unique experiences she was having would only help to benefit her future. Eventually, she found herself running out of w...

Emily Kramer has spent most of her life in the field of marketing. Through multiple marketing jobs—from her very first at an ad agency in San Francisco to roles at both startups (like Asana) and larger corporations (like Carta)—she realized her love for helping startups grow into flourishing companies. Emily also discovered she enjoyed hiring and building teams, which fit cleanly with her interest in investing in startups....

Lakshmi Rengarajan is fascinated by how people meet and get to know each other. First honing her people skills as a bartender, she later jumped on an opportunity and got a master’s degree in marketing at her local college. Not too long after, inspired by the recent growth of online dating, she ended up creating her own company, which held singles events modeled after TED Talks. Through time and her unending dedication and ...

Lia Zneimer, now Head of Brand & Content Marketing at Teal, began her professional career in a totally different field. In college, she double majored in English and theater, then post-college she worked professionally in theater in New York. She loved her time doing that, but it was a tiring lifestyle, and she wanted something more stable financially. Through a great deal of self-reflection, she ended up stepping away...

Jennifer Bangoura is a huge believer in finding small-world connections wherever she is in life. Starting her professional life as an Art History and French major in college, she grew very interested in West Africa and later moved to Mali as a Peace Corps volunteer. While she was in Africa between Mali and Bamako, she fell in love with not only the man who would become her husband but also the pursuit of a career path in e...

Originally from Minnesota, Jessica Peltz Zatulove moved to New York post-college and began her career doing media strategy for large brands like Gucci, Puma, 20th Century Fox, H&M, and Verizon. Fairly early in her adventure in the corporate world, she became fascinated with startup companies and formulated a plan to begin working with them. She ended up joining one of the first innovation boutiques as their second empl...