Ajay enjoyed a first career in technical roles in the food sector in India and the UK. During her career break to spend more time with her young family, Ajay also set up her own consultancy developing a wealth of fantastic business skills and experience. She also took the opportunity to pursue her long held interest in studying for an MBA.

When she was ready to return to work, she hoped to transition away from technical roles and use her MBA and consultancy experience in business management roles. However, she struggled to make the move into a different role and sector and initially received many rejections.

Her fortune changed when she came across Leidos, a technology company, who were running a returnship programme for professionals who had taken a career break. They saw the value of all her experience and how this might transfer across and in November 2023, Ajay successfully joined as a Benefits Realisation Manager, a role that brings together her stakeholder management expertise, project management skills and business experience.

“I am really proud of the example that I'm setting for my children and like I look up to my father, I hope they look up to me and say, it can be done. You can pursue your dreams and you can reinvent yourself in any stage in life.”

For advice, support, opportunities, and connection, see our Career Returners website: https://bit.ly/3eAhKQH

For more details about the experts and organisations inspiring and connecting people to make changes to their careers, take a look at the Careers can change campaign at careerscanchange.co.uk . A big thank you to Phoenix Insights for sponsoring this episode of the podcast and their support for the Careers can change campaign.