[EVOLVE] Kickstarting Your Tech Career After 30 | June 30

This session is part of Evolve Fest, a free series dedicated to helping individuals evolve and thrive in careers they love. Check out our Guide to Breaking Into Tech + full schedule of events here.

Taking a leap of faith can be rewarding in many ways. When we trust our inner intuition, it rarely fails us. Career pivots can involve friction, disruption, and risk compared to simply staying on a more linear and traditional career path.

For this special event, we have invited inspiring tech professionals to share their unfiltered experience and insights on what it's like to change careers after 30 years of age. You'll hear success stories from GA alumni who will discuss why they decided to embark on this journey, how the transition into their new careers has evolved since graduating, their emotional experience, and advice for those considering similar paths.

Additionally, we'll be hearing from hiring managers/recruiters to share their insights and advice for mid-career changing.

Join us for an inspiring conversation amongst dreamers and achievers in tech who decided that it's never too late to pursue your passion.

Our alumni's stories will cover such topics as:

• What factors advocated towards their decision making
• The journey and experience throughout the pivot
• The steps to achieve the same possibilities
• What it has been like finding a new career post-course and, of course, answering questions from our event attendees!

Tech leaders will cover the following topics:

• What factors advocated towards their decision making
• The journey and experience throughout the pivot
• The steps to achieve the same possibilities

Briar is the Founder & CEO of Career Organic, a professional development company focused on one on one coaching, candidate branding and bios, and group coaching for professionals across multiple life stages. Over the last two decades, she has been supporting a global clientele of professionals and entrepreneurs in navigating life and career complexities, preparing for transitions, and identifying opportunities for advancement in their lives, careers and businesses. After a decade of successfully navigating her career in New York City, Briar ventured to Metro Atlanta. In her corporate career she specialized in regional business growth and talent development, acquisitions, startup business strategy, and executive team building. Briar is passionate about giving back to her community and is the Chief Operating Officer for The Ovie Mughelli Foundation, an Atlanta-based 501c-3 non-profit.

John Bacolores (he/him) is a proud Queer, Pilipinx first-generation doctorate who joined GA in January 2021. As a Career Coach at the DTLA campus, he's supported local and national GA grads remotely during the pandemic by deconstructing and humanizing the tech job search process for career changers with empathy and honesty. 

Over the last decade, he considers himself a professional voyager with almost ten years of professional experience in K-12 education, college admissions consulting, and most recently, higher education and career services. Throughout his academic and professional career, he built his brand as an authentic, supportive mentor from years of teaching, advising, and coaching. 

His mantra for jobs seekers? "Sometimes things change, but they change for the better."

Leang Chung (she/her) is the Founder & CEO of Pelora Stack. She helps underrepresented early-stage founders, solopreneurs, and mid-career womxn prepare for their ‘first’. The first time they scale their team. The first time they build out their people operations infrastructure. The first time they pursue entrepreneurship. The first time they make a career change. Leveraging her 15+ years of HR leadership, serving as a trusted senior advisor and leading transformational changes as companies evolve from one business cycle to the next (startup, high growth, turnaround).

Leang is an active speaker and writer on topics such as Diversity, Equity & Inclusion, Advancing Women in the Workplace, Networking as an Introvert, Project Managing Your Career, Creating a Positive Candidate Experience, Building Strategic Partnerships to Grow Your Brand, and Relationship Building as an Entrepreneur.

She is a member of the Forbes Coaches Council. Previously, she served as Vice Chair for Global Connections for Women (GC4W), Digital Events Ambassador for Power to Fly, Founding Member of Tech Ladies, Mentor for The Ernestine McClendon Talent Grant recipients with Recruiting Innovation, and Mentor for Minds Matter.

Leang holds a M.A. degree in Organizational Psychology with a specialization in Change Leadership from Columbia University and a B.S. degree in Marketing from Johnson & Wales University.

Ruchika is a Data Scientist at Nielsen in their Core Audio Panel. She graduated from GA’s Data Science Immersive course in March 2020…right at the start of the pandemic. She is drawn to finding insights using data and is keenly interested in studying human behavior.

Ruchika has a Masters degree and was a Ph.D. candidate in Econometrics. She also has a Masters degree in Instructional Technology from Columbia University. After a career break of many years to raise 2 kids, she progressed naturally to Data Science since Data Analysis was most of what she had done in her career. She would love to share her journey.

Jason is a Bank of America Product Designer in Global Banking and Technology. He graduated from General Assembly’s UXDI course in April 2020. Jason loves being outdoors and spending time with his wife and five kids on their 10-acre horse farm. The farm currently has two goats, 16 chickens, and a cat named Smokey. The horses have yet to be purchased!

He is super excited to share about the wild journey that led him to General Assembly, why he almost quit the course, how his instructors dragged him back in, and the improbable circumstances that started this journey into tech, and now, Bank of America as a UX designer.

Career coaching and people operations consulting for underrepresented early stage founders, solopreneurs, and mid-career womxn as they prepare for their 'first' time.

What do I mean by 'first'?

It's the first time you're scaling your team.

The first time you're making a career change.

Or, the first time you're pursuing entrepreneurship.

Career Organic is a boutique career development firm that provides clients with the knowledge, experience, and guidance for managing and overcoming obstacles and complexities in their lives and careers by immersing each individual into discussions that promote accelerated and organic growth and equip them with the tools for future successes. The organization specializes in candidate branding documents including resumes, cover letters, and LinkedIn Profile writing, as well as one-on-one and group career coaching.

Diversifying tech and innovation hubs through the power of community.