220: Advancing Careers for Underrepresented Women with Octavia Goredema

Mar 29, 2023

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As a child growing up in England, Octavia Goredema was always reading. At age 7, she wrote a letter to the publisher Penguin Random House and asked how she could become an author. To her delight, she received a formal, personalized letter response from the publisher. For many years Octavia aspired to become a children’s book author.

Upon entrance to a competitive exam school and surrounded by many other smart kids, Octavia found herself losing confidence, or as she describes it, she “put ceilings on herself.” Octavia’s love of reading continued, yet she assumed that being an author was out of reach. However, she never completely gave up and parlayed her desire to write into a successful career in public relations after college. Octavia reflects on those years and realizes that she never felt fully aligned with her sense of purpose.

Her talents were recognized, and her contributions were highly valued, yet she had a boss who shared his observation that she was not passionate about PR. Octavia was really interested in mentoring and what it takes to advance careers. She started the Twenty Ten Club to help underrepresented women with their careers, and that led her to study coaching, open her practice and write a book.

Today, Octavia is a career coach and founder of the Twenty Ten Agency. Her mission is to help underrepresented professionals advance their careers. Octavia is the author of PREP, PUSH, PIVOT: Essential Career Strategies for Underrepresented Women, published by Wiley.

In this week’s Work From The Inside Out podcast, learn more about Octavia’s journey and work:

Octavia was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) by the Queen in recognition of her work on behalf of underrepresented women in the workforce.
She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, where she leads the Gender Equity network in the United States.

Learn more and connect with Octavia here:

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