Today we’d like to introduce you to Brittany Cole.
Brittany, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
Every experience is an opportunity for continuous improvement. Growing up, the youngest of three and the only girl, my dad would always tell my brothers and me that “the biggest room in our house is the room for improvement.” My parents instilled in me the value of being a lifelong learner and owning my growth and development to reach my goals.
This focus lead me to join INROADS as a high school student and by my sophomore year in undergrad, I was introduced to corporate America through their internship program. After two successful summers at Pfizer, I received an offer the fall semester of my senior year to join the organization full time. I decided to bypass law school and went on to spend 12 years at this premier pharmaceutical company leading people and projects in sales, marketing, and key D&I initiatives through our women and Black employee resource groups (ERGs.)
As often the youngest and only Black woman in the room for most of my corporate career, I learned that image and exposure (personal branding) are the most critical components of career advancement. Performance is the price of admission, but to really play the game and elevate to higher levels, people need to see, know, like, and trust you. I always share with my coaching clients that you are a brand, and if you aren’t branding yourself then you’re giving permission for someone else to do it for you.
Through navigating my career in corporate, I learned some hard and valuable lessons that equipped me to do three things:
1. Own my brilliance and stop compartmentalizing (hiding) who I am
2. Own my career and create the opportunities I was seeking
3. Own my development and take a proactive approach to upskilling and building business acumen
About ten years into my corporate career, I started my entrepreneurship journey. I launched an image consulting business (Style by Britt), empowering women to elevate their look and leadership to reach their career goals. As my clientele grew and my career advanced with relocation and more responsibility, I made a pivot out of fashion and into coaching and speaking. This shift aligned with my
my love of encouraging empowering, and equipping people to thrive in their career. It was also the work I was doing off the side of my desk through the ERGs at my organization that brought me the most joy. As I took on more speaking opportunities – keynotes, workshops, training, and panels – and worked with more coaching clients, it became clear that there was ample opportunity to do more and be more in this space. So, last year I rebranded my company to Career Thrivers and took the leap of faith from full-time employee to full-time entrepreneur! Career Thrivers is an inclusive leadership development firm that partners with organizations to help cultivate an inclusive culture where everyone can thrive. We also help women and professionals of color advance their careers through targeted leadership development.
Has it been a smooth road?
Most of the pivotal moments I’ve experienced have been connected to a loss. Often it’s when we’re experiencing change, transition, or challenge that we get a clearer picture of our truest priorities. One of those moments that has rocked me the most has been the death of my mother. Three months after accepting a career promotion and relocating to Pfizer’s headquarters in NYC, she died. I made the move in March of 2017, with her full support and excitement. She was in good health and making plans for an extended visit that summer, and on June 5th, she was gone.
Everything changed for me on and after that day. She was my chief cheerleader in everything, so I struggled with wanting to do anything for some time. However, what I’m most grateful for learning through this loss is how to take off the mask and rest the cape that I was taught to wear throughout my corporate career. That adage that many of us live by of being twice as good can sometimes keep us in this endless cycle of performance and achievement that can be detrimental to our mental health, especially when we’re living with loss. We don’t have to pretend we’re strong to show that we’re brave, worthy, or capable. I have a new appreciation for what it means to really be resilient as you journey forward in new ways. Real resilience isn’t about bouncing back. Deep loss changes you, and the way you thrive through it is in how your journey forward. I’m excited to share more on this topic to help people that find themselves suffering in silence.
We’d love to hear more about Career Thrivers.
Many companies are currently struggling to engage, develop, retain, and promote their Black and brown colleagues. Despite having a diverse workforce, many leadership teams within organizations look the same. Career Thrivers partners with organizations that are looking to operationalize their diversity and inclusion commitments by developing inclusive leaders and equipping diverse talent to thrive in their careers. I serve clients as a speaker, coach, and consulting in this space specializing in four areas of leadership: inclusion, resilience, personal branding, and communication.
In working 1:1 with coaching clients, I’m known for helping high achieving professionals and entrepreneurs create a strategic plan around their personal brand that will increase their visibility, influence, and impact to attract the career opportunities they want. When it comes to personal branding, I bring a wealth of corporate and personal experience to my work with a focus on implementation and accountability to reach the goals my clients set. As it relates to DEI, my business background is a differentiator in this space. My lens for helping companies cultivate an inclusive culture is tied to leveraging differences to create business value in an integrated, company-wide approach that includes and extends beyond human resources.
Is our city a good place to do what you do?
Yes, Atlanta is a great place to start a business. There’s a thriving community of entrepreneurs in Atlanta with resources like the Grow with Google Digital Coaches program lead by Justin Dawkins and Collab Capital, which is an investment fund leveraging financial, human, and social capital to help Black founders build sustainable, innovation-centered businesses.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.careerthrivers.com/
- Email: brittany@careerthrivers.com
- Podcast: https://www.careerthrivers.com/podcast
- Instagram: @brittanyncole
Image Credit:
Hannah Capps
Drea Nicole
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