By Brenda Lando Fridman

I like to joke that in May 2023, I “retired” from the world of operating after only 23 years. It wasn’t my choice – I was one of the half a million tech professionals whose role was eliminated. I remember the initial state of shock; then I passed quickly through the phases of loss – perhaps too quickly – before landing in acceptance. Within a week of losing my day job, which at the time was also my identity, I found Athena Alliance. That serendipitously-timed moment kick-started the journey of my professional transformation. 

To go a layer deeper into the initial shock phase, it felt that everything I had built over my entire life had crumbled beneath my feet. I was the sole earner for my young family, and had never gone without income for more than one week. In fact, my Athena coach asked me – “if you had to quickly scale up any of your monetizable skills to drive household income, what would it be?” I drew a total blank. I was also well aware of the industry hiring dynamic which had swung far in favor of the employer over the last several months. It felt dire, and like I was about to search for a needle in a haystack (great role | great colleagues | great problems | great impact). I went so far as to plan a ridiculous, worst-case scenario of moving the whole family (and dog) to Dad’s basement in New Jersey.

Born an engineer (well, kind of), I approach every challenge as a solvable problem, finding strength and motivation from breaking them down into bite-sized pieces. I set out to tackle the foundational things first: a new resume, new LinkedIn profile, new coach, new network. Athena helped me find and build those things, giving me the clarity and tools to move forward.

Next, I switched myself into learning mode again, letting myself get lost in a sea of new information and experiences that would eventually shape my path. I took wrong turns, U-turns, and some fortuitous turns that led me to close this chapter of “retirement.” I patched together a custom curriculum that opened up two different, yet related, worlds (late-stage startups and early-stage startups), underpinned by a firm foundational understanding of AI. These included: Harvard Business School’s Competing in the Edge of AI; Pavilion’s CRO School; ELVTR’s AI for Marketers; Athena’s Salons,  coaches,  peer interactions, and thought leadership from Coco Brown, and hundreds of incredible 1:1 conversations.

By month 3, my goals had become clear: [Job] Get a full-time operating role at a mid-sized SaaS company where I can drive success for thousands of customers at scale while learning from world-class leadership and [Invest] Dive head-first into Angel investing to create a diversified and exciting revenue stream full of learnings and upside. 

With this clarity, I further leveraged Athena’s vast, connected network and pursued a job search strategy that opened new doors every day, improved my competitive positioning, and allowed me to progress to final rounds on multiple occasions. My career coach taught me early on to have an abundance mindset during a time when all signs point to scarcity; this kept me hungry and optimistic on the journey of frequent ups and downs.

Fast forward to today, I’m proud to have achieved my goals. [Job] I’m now operating full time as the Director of Small Business Sales at HubSpot and I’ve never been so excited to drive a company forward through its people, product, and operations. [Invest] I have a clear investment thesis, have made my first 10 investments, and have a firm strategy and toolkit to crank this high risk / high reward investment asset class over the next 10 years. 

In closing, I can’t help but reflect on the gift that this transition period has given to me – TIME. Time with my young daughters, time learning a new hobby (golf!), time to curate an expanded and upleveled network, time to deeply understand AI, time to develop tangible skills, and time with myself. While landing these two goals is an incredible achievement and feeling, I also realize they are milestones along the journey of a forever transformation. 

Strategy + Execution + Mindset = Ongoing Success: This magic formula guided me through these challenging months, and will continue to guide me through what I’m sure will be even more demanding times on the journey ahead.