My Journey

How it started

Armed with a Bachelors of Engineering in Electronics and Communication and MBA with a major in Human Resources and minor in Marketing, I began my career at a Fortune 500 company in the Financial Services domain as a Talent Acquisition Associate.

My core responsibilities involved managing end to end recruitment for diverse roles such as Product Managers, Business Analysts, Developers as well as Heads of Product. I collaboratewith business heads and their teams to understand the requirements of the role(s), team culture, and fit in addition to mapping out forecasts and analyzing data to determine yield.

It was during this time that I noticed there was a disconnect between HR and business. Identifying this helped to negotiate with the business by bringing the gap through dialogue and we were successful in meeting hiring needs.

Fun Fact

We stayed in the US for 9.5 years

As if life was lacking challenges, while looking for jobs in the US, I also decided to pivot my career and transition into the dynamic world of Product Management. The basis for my crazy idea was that Product Management would be the perfect marriage between my Engineering degree, my MBA in Human Resources as well as my experience in Talent Acquisition.

I started out as a Business Analyst for a Fortune 100 client in the telecommunications domain and quickly transitioned into a Product Owner role.

My belief in career transitions further strengthened when I realized that my HR skills of interviewing and exceptional collaboration skills came to my rescue every single day. I found it extremely easy to solicit requirements and have healthy discussions during intense Product discovery sessions with demanding stakeholders. My HR experience of hiring Product managers taught me to effectively work with developers, and business analysts. My Engineering degree helped me understand technical complexities and empathize with the development team.

By adopting an agile mindset and providing improved engagement, collaboration, transparency, and adaptability via Scrum’s values, roles, events, and artifacts, the results were excellent.

Some Shocking Facts about our Move

We had never visited France before we did not speak any French. Our combined knowledge of French was limited to “Bonjour”, “Merci beaucoup”.

We knew absolutely no one in France. None of our friends, family or even acquaintances had ever lived in France or even visited it.

We landed in Lyon, France on a cold, grey morning and made our way to our new temporary home in a 500 year old apartment in Vieux Lyon.

This time, I was an experienced expat and hence I hit the ground running. I identified a French teacher even before we moved and I began classes with him. I also immersed myself in French culture by actively seeking out opportunities to mingle with the locals.

By December 2023, I obtained B2 level in French and managed to clear my DELF exams.

Despite my best efforts, I still felt the need for an expat coach and began actively looking for one. Despite my previous expatriate experience in the US, France was a different ball game.

I felt frustrated and lonely on many occasions and I genuinely felt the need for help from someone who would understand my situation without feeling sympathy.

I wanted empathy not sympathy. I met several coaches but none worked out for me because most of them did not have extensive expatriate experience of living in different continents as trailing spouses. Secondly, none of them had tried to navigate career transitions during their expatriation.

They had all become expat coaches after returning back to their home countries. This meant that they were more helpful for returning expats than someone like me.

THE AHA Moment

One fine morning while sitting in a café and sipping on my café alone, it hit me that “Why can’t I become an expat coach”?

Utilizing my Product Management background, I quickly put together a business idea and did a SWOT (Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities and Threats) on myself and the business plan.

Fun fact: All this planning was done on a napkin with a pen that the barista had given me. In France, they only give one napkin unlike 10 of them given in the US. And I did not want to invite the wrath of a French barista when he had already lent me his pen, so I began scribbling away carefully.

Et Voila! The Empowered Expats was born on a piece of napkin.

Having lived and worked in 3 countries on 3 continents with people from multiple cultural backgrounds was a testament to my cross cultural adaptation.

Utilizing my diverse skill set I realized that I was the perfect bridge for expats to help cross over “confused to confident” because I had my decade long experiences to guide me.

My diverse background and experiences help me to understand the challenges of navigating complicated cultural nuances and diverse professional landscapes.

Everyone wants simple solutions to their daily problems and I wanted to help fellow expats make their dream of creating a life abroad a reality. I want to be the bridge and fill the gap by designing simple and effective solutions for problems that expats face in their daily life.

My Journey

How it started

Fun Fact

Some Shocking Facts about our Move

THE AHA Moment

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