Episode #4: Career pivot with Rachele Focardi: How a journalist and TV anchor became a leading expert on generational diversity.

My guest in this episode is Rachele Focardi. She is one of these people who believes that "life is a matter of synchronicity, and a matter of synergy and a matter of connections." and that "What is meant for you will always find you. We should be thankful for all these closed doors because they protect us from things that are not meant for us."

She also says that "one of the benefits of going with the flow and jumping into things without giving too much thought is you don't really need a plan to define your success or a lack of success. The more fluid you are, and to a certain extent you have to have a goal in mind, the less likely you will experience setbacks that mess up this plan."

Rachele was born and raised in Italy, studied journalism in the US, and spent her professional life between Europe, the US, and Asia.

After graduation, Rachele became an anchor for CFN-CNBN in Italy. But then she decided to go back to the US to pursue her master's degree and was waiting tables in two restaurants to support herself. This is where she connected with Universum, a global employer branding agency, and landed one of their projects, which transitioned to full-time employment. This is how she dived into and later spearheaded the employer branding movement globally, advocating for organizations and governments to incorporate an employer branding strategy into their workforce planning. 

After a very successful 16 years career at Universum, where she was Chief Strategy Officer, Rachele decided to pursue her real passion: bridging the generational divide. At that time, McGraw Hill offered her a publishing contract. In 4 months, during Singapore's Covid-19 Circuit Breaker with three kids under five and while serving her six-month notice, she wrote: "Reframing Generational Stereotypes" (which has since become a best-seller). She started XYZ@Work to help organizations adapt to the needs of the new generations, foster a culture of intergenerational collaboration, harmonize their multigenerational workforce and empower future leaders to drive positive change.

Listen to her full story of transition from journalism and TV anchor to becoming a leading expert on generational diversity, a global thought leader, and public speaker on multigenerational workforce dynamics, the future of work, and employer branding.

Happy listening!