From TV Production to Rail Innovation with Charlotte Hills

Charlotte’s first career was in TV production, initially working as a script supervisor and then as a Director working on well-known programmes such as Big Brother and Hell's Kitchen.She took a career break of 6 years to raise her twin daughters and during this time she also relocated to Switzerland with her family. Unable to work there, she was the main carer for her daughters. After returning to the UK, Charlotte began to look for work but returning to her old freelance TV career was not easy or conducive to raising a young family. This led Charlotte to think more creatively about what she would return to and to be open to the different possibilities and career paths ahead that would enable her to make a fresh start.She came across an advert for a Returner Programme at Tideway and applied for the role of ‘Innovation Co-Ordinator’. Charlotte claims now that she had no idea what this role meant but because they weren’t looking for any specific technical experience, but more for transferable skills, she felt bold enough to apply and was successful! In our conversation we chat about transferable skills, and their key role in helping her build a successful new career in engineering. As ‘Head of Innovation’ now at HS2, Charlotte talks to how her ability to build a narrative and bring people on board with her, skills all honed in her TV career, have been key to her success. Hear how Charlotte navigated her career change from TV to high speed rail and found herself a rewarding and fulfilling career which offers financial security and stability. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3v9INYzFollow for free on Spotify: https://spoti.fi/30rZZL6For 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.

Om Podcasten

Is it possible to return to a fulfilling, challenging, successful career after a long career break? After listening to these stories we want your answer to be a resounding yes! On our Career Returners podcast, you’ll hear from a diverse range of people who are successfully back at work after taking long career breaks for childcare, eldercare, health or other reasons. They’re sharing the ups-and-downs of their return-to-work journeys – the challenges, the rewards and the learnings. After each story, we’ll chat over some of the key themes that emerged and share some of our top return to work tips. The Career Returners podcast is brought to you by Career Returners, the return to work specialists. We work with employers and career returners to enable professionals to return to satisfying and fulfilling work after career breaks of 2, 5 or 15+ years. Over the years we’ve coached thousands of career returners, and we’re excited now to share some of their inspirational stories with you. After listening to this episode, do head along to careerreturners.com where you’ll find lots of advice, over 100 success stories, and a range of return to work opportunities for people on career break wanting to get back to work. While you're there, do sign up to our free Network and also our Facebook group for extra support and connection. Website: careerreturners.com Facebook: facebook.com/careerreturnersnetwork/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/careerreturners/ X: https://x.com/careerreturners