Career Transitions

Season 6 closes with no guest, just Vanessa Iloste and Vanessa Teo, talking honestly about what six seasons of conversations have actually taught them. They revisit the sparks from this season's guests, name the tensions they never resolved (should you go inward or just move), and then get into the real conversation: the meaning crisis hiding inside every AI transformation, why transition capability is becoming the defining professional advantage, and why leadership is turning into a daily practice rather than a fixed position. Expect genuine disagreement, unfinished thoughts, and a first look at where the podcast is headed in Season 7. 
Connect with us on LinkedIn: 
·       Vanessa Iloste (Host)
·       Vanessa Teo (Host) 
·       Aaron Wu (Producer)

What does it take to lead a 250-year-old brand across eight Southeast Asian markets in an era of TikTok commerce, agentic AI, and fragmented consumer journeys? In this episode, we sit down with Evelyn Chua, Managing Director for Southeast Asia and Oceania at Birkenstock, who brings 15 years of retail leadership across luxury fashion, beauty, wines and spirits, and e-commerce.
Evelyn shares how she has navigated some genuinely distinct career transitions: from DFS and the world of travel retail, to the fast-moving world of e-commerce at Synergy, to her current role shaping Birkenstock's regional strategy. Her career is a masterclass in what it means to build breadth without sacrificing depth.
In this conversation, we explore:
How the consumer journey has fundamentally shifted, and why there is no longer one dominant channel
How Birkenstock protects its premium positioning in a region as fragmented and fast-paced as Southeast Asia
Why AI reinforces rather than replaces the importance of brand clarity and consistency
The hybrid skills that retail leaders need today compared to five years ago
What Evelyn tells her team when they are afraid to say "I don't know"
Her three pieces of advice for anyone navigating a career in retail: stay positive and adaptable, build breadth, and stay grounded
Whether you are a seasoned retail professional wondering how to stay relevant, or an early-career leader figuring out which moves to make next, Evelyn's perspective is grounding, practical, and genuinely generous.
Connect with us on LinkedIn: 
·       Vanessa Iloste (Host)
·       Vanessa Teo (Host) 
·       Aaron Wu (Producer)

What if the feeling that your job isn't fulfilling enough isn't a sign you're in the wrong place — but an invitation to build meaning where you are?
In this Season 6 episode of the Career Transitions Podcast, we sit down with Winnie Jiang, Assistant Professor of Organizational Behavior at INSEAD Singapore, whose research sits at the heart of what this podcast is all about: how people make sense of their careers, find meaning, and navigate change.
We explore why the "perfect job" myth can do more harm than good, and why meaning isn't something a job gives you — it's something you actively construct. Winnie introduces us to the concept of job crafting: the everyday, practical choices we make about tasks, relationships, and mindset that can transform how we experience our work right now, without changing roles.
We also dig into the difference between meaning and purpose (and why it's okay not to have a grand "why"), the deeply social nature of career transitions — including what it really takes to claim a new professional identity — and how AI is reshaping meaning at work in ways that are more nuanced than the headlines suggest.
Winnie's research on dancers navigating AI disruption offers a striking window into what meta agency looks like in practice: the shift from reactive adaptation to actively choosing how and where you grow.
When was the last time you actively crafted your job — rather than waiting for it to feel more meaningful on its own?
Connect with us on LinkedIn and let us know.
Read more of Winnie's work:
A Search for Daily Meaning: Building a Purpose-Driven Career
Three Lessons From Tech Layoffs on Building Career Agility
Is Working Yourself "To The Bone" Ever Worth It?
Perceiving Fixed or Flexible Meaning: Navigating Occupational Destabilization (Administrative Science Quarterly, 2023)
From Boundaryless to Boundary-Crossing: A Friction-Based Model of Career Transitions (Research in Organizational Behavior, 2024)
Connect with us on LinkedIn: 
·       Vanessa Iloste (Host)
·       Vanessa Teo (Host) 
·       Aaron Wu (Producer)

What does it really mean to belong — not just to a team or an organisation, but to yourself?
In this episode, hosts Vanessa Iloste and Vanessa Teo sit down with Judy Liu, Founder of The Outlier Mind, ICF Professional Certified Coach, Organisational Psychologist, and author of the newly published Beyond Belonging: Finding Home in Who You Are. After more than a decade building the Learning and Development function at Hays across Asia, Judy made a bold leap into entrepreneurship — and has never looked back.
Judy's career path is anything but conventional. Starting with a double degree in Law and Psychology, she moved through recruitment, L&D leadership, and eventually into coaching and organisational psychology — not through a master plan, but by following a thread that only became visible in hindsight. In this conversation, she reflects on what it takes to reinvent yourself multiple times within one organisation, what finally pushed her to go out on her own, and why she believes the most powerful career transitions are not just about changing roles, but about coming home to who you really are.
We explore the psychology behind career change — the fears, the hesitations, and the stories we tell ourselves that keep us stuck. Judy shares why she champions the art of slowing down in a world that celebrates relentless pace, and what it means to lead in genuine alignment with your values rather than the expectations of others. Drawing on her experience across Singapore, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Japan, and China, she also unpacks how cultural context shapes the way people experience belonging — and what organisations often get wrong when they try to build it.
Whether you are contemplating a career leap, leading a team through uncertainty, or simply trying to find your footing in a rapidly changing world of work, this episode offers both provocation and permission to embrace your own weird and wonderful self.
Key themes: career reinvention, authentic leadership, organisational psychology, the future of work, belonging, cross-cultural leadership, entrepreneurship
 
Connect with us on LinkedIn: 
·       Vanessa Iloste (Host)
·       Vanessa Teo (Host) 
·       Aaron Wu (Producer)

What does it really mean to future-proof your career — and is AI really coming for your job?
In this episode of the Career Transitions Podcast, we sit down with Sankar Venkatraman, Global Evangelist for Talent Solutions at LinkedIn, to explore what the data actually tells us about how work, the workforce, and the workplace are being reshaped by AI.
With nearly 14 years at LinkedIn and a front-row seat to global talent trends, Sankar brings both the numbers and the nuance. We dig into why organisations are hiring for potential over pedigree, what skills will truly matter in an AI-enabled world (hint: it's mostly human ones), and why the fear of AI displacing jobs is more headlines than reality.
Sankar also shares his own career journey — from Silicon Valley startups to Cisco to LinkedIn — and the three pieces of advice he'd give anyone navigating a major career shift. Plus, his concept of ikigai and why finding that intersection of passion, mission, vocation and profession is the only real path to long-term fulfilment.
Whether you're leading a team, reskilling yourself, or just trying to make sense of the moment we're all in — this conversation will leave you feeling more curious than afraid.
Connect with Sankar: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sankarvenkatraman/
LinkedIn Talent Blog: https://www.linkedin.com/business/talent/blog
WEF Future of Jobs Report 2023: https://www.weforum.org/publications/the-future-of-jobs-report-2023/
Connect with us on LinkedIn: 
·       Vanessa Iloste (Host)
·       Vanessa Teo (Host) 
·       Aaron Wu (Producer)