129. Dr Mona Mourshed: From McKinsey Senior Partner to Global Non-Profit Founder, Learn from her Journey and the profound influence of the Arab Spring

Join Dr. Mona Mourshed from Generation.org as we explore the magic of education and jobs. She's not your average leader; she's a trailblazer who's traveled from the Middle East to the forefront of changing careers. Our chat is packed with great insights. Mona explains how having a strong passion and connecting it with your goals can transform your life.

Let's applaud Generation.org's amazing achievements: 100,000 graduates in just two years, with 80% of them landing jobs! But it's not just about the numbers; it's about how deeply they're changing lives. We'll dive into how they keep going strong despite challenges, adapting and expanding like a nation's dreams.

We also tackle today's job market reality, talking about the importance of always learning and the gap between what companies say and do when hiring. With personal stories and career tips, this episode is a push for continuous growth and meaningful work.

Come along on this journey and discover why Generation.org gives hope to those navigating the job world. Get inspired, fuel your career dreams, and remember—the stories we share today could shape your tomorrow.

Follow Dr Mona on LinkedIn here https://www.linkedin.com/in/mona-mourshed/
Learn about Generation.org here: https://www.generation.org/

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Transcript

Sonal: 0:08

Hey there, welcome to the how I Got Hired podcast. I'm your host, sonal Behal, former HR director and founder of Supercharge, and I have had an insane corporate career that started out in India, then moved to South America and then to Europe, often working only in Spanish or French, which I had to learn there from scratch. Now, why do I call my career insane? Because while I've experienced complete highs, like working across geographies and industries, while navigating challenges like needing visa sponsorships, zero network locally during recessions, and often while being a new mom to one of my two kids, I have seen career heartbreak and multiple layoffs, as well. As a career strategist, I strongly believe that a fulfilling career is a birthright and not a privilege for the lucky few who have access to prestigious education, capital and networks. And now I am on a mission to democratize access to high value career advice by designing affordable digital courses with my YouTube channel and this podcast right here, where we learn together from ordinary people like you and me and how they created extraordinary career success. I hope this episode reminds you that if they could do it, you can do it too. Now get ready to get supercharged, let's go. Hey there, welcome back, welcome back.

Sonal: 1:43

My guest today began her career 25 years ago in the Middle East, where she was one of the founding members of McKinsey's offices in the region. And while over there, dr Mona Murshid founded and led McKinsey's global education service line, leading research on high performing and fast improving, fast-improving school systems, as well as on the challenges of that education to the employment journey, something she was deeply involved with for over 10 years. So in 2014, which is at the time of this recording pretty much 10 years ago Mona became founder and CEO of Generationorg. What is that? This is a global nonprofit with a mission to support learners of all ages to be trained and placed in careers that were previously beyond their reach. How does she do that? We're going to talk about that. Mona has a BA from Stanford and PhD from MIT. She holds dual Egyptian and US citizenship. We are going to talk about this career switch and so much more.

Sonal: 2:49

Mona, such a pleasure. Welcome to the show. Thank you for having me. Pleasure to be here. Fantastic Mona, let's get cracking right away. I want to talk about the start of your career journey, like I mentioned in the intro, at McKinsey, and you spent the better part of your adult life there. So talk to us about. How did this move happen? How did you get hired there?

Mona: 3:12

So I was very keen to be able to return to the region, the region being the Middle East, and so that was the opportunity which I had, as by being part of McKinsey's Middle East office.

Mona: 3:30

And then, once I got there, that was a moment in time when many countries in the region were really spending efforts to improve the literacy and numeracy rates within the school systems, and so I very quickly then became very engaged in how can you actually move school system outcomes, and you know, it's very much like finding your place in the world.

Mona: 4:01

As soon as I began working in the education space, it just felt like this is where I should be, this is what was meant to be, and that began my journey in education, and so, initially, with a focus on K-12, so schools, you know. And then, at the time, you will recall that it was the moment of the Arab Spring and around 2010, 2011. And that's when my attention began focusing on youth unemployment, because up until then, I've been very focused on okay, if we just improve literacy, numeracy levels, we get students graduated, everything will be fine. Numeracy level as we get students graduated, everything will be fine. But when you have 40% youth unemployment rates, things are not fine, and so that's when I began to focus more upstream, if you will, on what do you do to bridge the education to employment gap?

Sonal: 4:58

Perfect, perfect. So I'm just going to pause you here because I want to get more detailed here. But when you say, I want to rewind, just detailed here. But when you say, um, I want to rewind just a second. When you said education, um, and you know, you did your BA and you did your PhD, tell me why the education sector, like what about it, appealed to you because you probably had so many choices in front of you I'm talking, you know, 25, 20 years ago and why this education.

Mona: 5:23

Education makes lives right. Education is what propels you through social adversity. It propels you onto a new economic mobility path. I've seen that happen with my own family, and this is the path that I would love to be a part of enabling for others. You know, my father grew up with very little in Cairo and education was what enabled him to create a life for himself, for my family, and there is, in my mind, nothing more powerful. You know so I'm very much a believer. You know, healthcare saves lives, education makes lives.

Sonal: 6:13

Oh, that is such a treatable. Healthcare saves lives, education makes lives. I couldn't agree more and your dad must be so proud of you. You know, because it's very relatable, what you're saying People from our parents' generation, grandparents' generation. Education was such a privilege. You know to talk about, not something you take for granted, and you know when you said, you know wanted to get back into this region, it's still right, it wasn't a given Like, how did like Mackenzie? Like, how did you guys find each other? And do you remember something about the interview process? Um, and being given this responsibility? It's not a, it's not a small thing. Like, is there something that you felt helped you to stand out?

Mona: 6:53

oh, that's taking me back now many years that's the whole idea I mean I think, um look, whenever you are engaged in starting up any new activity, there has to be a certain amount of passion and hustle and just judgment and problem solving that you bring to it. And that was true in my early days at McKinsey. It's true in building generation days at McKinsey. It's true in building generation. You have to want it very deeply to be able to make something happen and to bring something into being that isn't today existing. And then you have to have a great team of people around you who are similarly minded. So those are the things that stand out for me.

Sonal: 7:41

Yeah, yeah, I'm so glad you talked about that because I talked about this five years ago on a, six years ago on a YouTube video hunger. You either want it like really badly or you don't. And and recruiters can smell that from a mile away who's actually window shopping and who really, you know, actually wants this, and it shows in your body language, it shows in everything that you talk about. And do you remember in these years right, better part of two decades that you were here? What are some career highlights, some lessons that have helped shape who you are as a leader today?

Mona: 8:24

Another big question. So I would say there have been a couple of things important in my journey to date. One is to always have a global perspective and not only get stuck in your own myopic view of whatever it is you know. So I think quite early in my career I was lucky to be able to, for example, with education systems, to go visit education systems across the world and to understand what is it like to be in a classroom in Singapore or in Finland or in Lithuania or in Brazil, whatever it may be, and so that that has always stuck with me. You know, just always understand what it is like to sit in someone else's shoes and do not put your own pattern recognition onto it. See, the new pattern that exists.

Mona: 9:23

Yes, so that's one thing that's been quite formative too is just the importance of team. You know there's that old saying that you know if you want to go fast, go alone, but if you want to go far, go together, and that's very true. And then you have to find who is your team and who is that, and the importance, as you think about the team, of people who think differently than you, because it is that point of friction that is where greatness happens in terms of taking leaps and bounds, you know. So. Never surround yourself with people who only think like you. Deliberately surround yourself with people who only think like you. Deliberately surround yourself with people who think differently than you, so that you are a complementary whole that can go much further together.

Mona: 10:12

Exactly, and I think the last thing you know, you always need new challenge, like, never get comfortable. As soon as you get comfortable, you get timid, right. So always push to what is the next thing? What is the next thing in order to grow right? And that you know. I've been very blessed that you know. Every year there's something different in my world that enables me to take the skills that I've gained and to apply them in a really different way and to learn new things. And then the final, final thing that I'll say is you know, learning comes from everywhere, right? So I learn as much from those who are early in their career as those who are more senior in their career. So just always be open to learning from everyone in your orbit. Do not only think that learning happens from those who are more senior to you.

Sonal: 11:16

Yes, exactly, I think each of these are. You know, they're so rich they deserve. Honestly, I think I need to double click the. The echo chamber effect is very real. We see this in today's world. It's a massive problem with senior leaders, because they surround themselves with, yes, men and and people who agree, um, and they don't see obstacles because nobody talks about them, right, and and uh, pattern recognition, what is normal? Right, and I think what you're saying goes deeper, like the day-to-day. She has an accent. She has. She has an accent compared to what? Because pattern recognition. What you're saying is we center ourselves as the norm and then everything else. Then look at it from a completely different angle and I think what you said is really, really important. So, if I'm talking to the listener right now, you were like, oh, this is cool. No, no, hold on rewind 120 seconds and listen to that part again, because it was really relevant.

Sonal: 12:13

Um, comfort is the enemy of growth. When you get comfortable, you get timid. You're right. We have lots of fear when and we come from uncomfortable ego loves that. Don't get me out there. It's, it's too scary. Uh, I'm so warm and cozy in my blanket right now. I don't want to go out there in the cold or you know, in unknown circumstances. And, lastly, learning. If you have, you know, less or no ego. You can learn from your mentees, you learn from students, you learn from children, you learn from sources that you don't think are traditional sources of wisdom, um so that's beautiful, beautiful.

Mona: 12:52

I also learn from my daughter every day.

Sonal: 12:55

Yeah, I learned from her literally something every day, every single day, every single day.

Sonal: 13:02

I love that. So everything was going really well. Mona, talk to us about, like some might say, you left that. You know, speaking of comfort is the enemy of growth. Maybe that's where we're going right now. You left that comfort of and I put comfort in air quotes, employment, employed life at McKinsey. So you, 10 years ago, and you go ahead and you start generationorg. Tell us about what were you thinking and also what followed next. What were those early months, early years, what were they like? And we also want to learn from you the mission like how do you get people placed into roles that are considered beyond their reach? We want to know lots of stuff, absolutely.

Mona: 13:45

So I had mentioned earlier that around 2011 was the time of the Arab Spring, and on the heels of the Arab Spring was the global Occupy movement. So, if you will remember, occupy Wall Street and then it became Occupy Men's Across Cities in the world, and that was when I began realizing this bridge from education to employment. So what happens? Post-secondary school education was an area where I wanted to spend time, and so that's, that was the spark, that was the trigger for my shift, at least from K-12 to looking at post-secondary, and that then led to an exploration around what does it take to be able to train and place tens of thousands of people into new careers? And, as I was looking across the world, you know so, there are lots of programs that train you, and they can be very large programs, but they can have a very low job placement rate. You know so, like 15, 20%. And then there are programs that train and place you in a job, but they tend to be much lower volume, so it tends to be, you know, in the hundreds, low, thousands on an annual basis, but they have a job placement rate of 70% or above. And so for me, the question was okay, well, could there be something in the middle, you know, can something train and place. You have tens of thousands of people who go through it every year and have an 80 percent plus job placement rate and be cost effective and be global, and so that's really what led to the thinking behind Generation. So we are a global nonprofit and we started life in 2015. And what we do is train and place adults into careers that would otherwise be inaccessible, and so we began initially with a focus on youth, then we expanded to adults of all ages, because mid-careers and those seeking to transition to new careers it comes across the entire age spectrum and we now have 100,000 graduates, half of them have been in the last two years. So we're now growing quite quickly.

Mona: 16:21

We measure our impact in terms of what we call breadth, depth and durability, and for us, I want to really emphasize scale equals breadth plus depth plus durability. The scale, I think, is often confused as being breadth alone. That is not good enough. So breadth is the volume of our employers and our graduates on an annual basis. Depth is our employment and income outcomes at three to six months, which you know. So now we have about an 80% job placement rate at three months. It becomes about 90% at six months post-program and then the durability is the employment, income and well-being outcomes up to five years post-program.

Mona: 17:09

So we continue tracking to see has this actually resulted in a shift in the lives of our alumni. So our graduates have now earned over a billion dollars in wages and we know that within a year, in about 11 of our countries, over 70% of our graduates achieve living wage, and that continues two to five years out for our employed graduates. We know what happens in terms of savings. We know what happens in terms of well-being. We have now about 40 million data points across the spectrum and we work across now about 35 professions, and they span tech, healthcare, customer service, skilled trades and green jobs, and so we are still on the learning journey, but we feel like there is a code that we are beginning to crack about not just how you get someone in a job, but you get them to life transforming outcomes over the five years post that initial job placement.

Sonal: 18:18

Wow, I'm blown away. 100,000 graduates and I've seen the website as well so many countries and and even though every you know country has a different language, the look and feel is is very similar and I like um it's, it's repeatable. You know, you don't waste time. The very first page you talk about you know the mission and I love this definition of scale and I'm going to use this, with your permission, again and again yeah, thank you. Scale is seen in such a myopic way as breadth, and if you don't have breadth, you don't have scale, breadth, depth and durability. Durability is obviously the one that is most overlooked, because we are almost always short-term driven, short-term focus. But looking at the quality of life, looking at everything that you said life transformation and I love that you said living wage and not minimum wage, because minimum has never been good enough, not for a half decent life, right? So, wow, to think, mona, this came from an idea, right? And look at how I I know you're, you know you're so humble and you're like we're still learning. We've kind of we're figuring a few things out. We're learning, but we have a little formula in place. We are still early in the journey. There's what does it take.

Sonal: 19:40

I wasn't planning to ask you this, but you know, people start companies every day. People start things with an idea and there's so much data out there it doesn't survive. Two years, three years. They shut shop wasn't scalable, whatever definition of scale they were using. And here you are on the heels of your you know celebrating the 10th anniversary. What does it take to last?

Mona: 20:05

So many things. So I think, first of all, we've been blessed to have tremendous supporters in our journey, and you know so, from funders to governments, to our learners. We learn from them every day. Teams right, I saw a very diverse team across the world, right, you know so. We are blessed with our team and team involving, you know, also, our, like our broader ecosystem.

Mona: 20:34

If you will, I think the second thing I'd say is and this is another saying fall in love with the problem, not with your solution, right, Because life changes. You know, COVID happened. That changed the way of work in many ways. And then the last thing I'd say is the more we have grown, the more we realize we have yet to do, right, you know, I think, that the aspirations we started with in 2015,. If you were to ask me now well, how have my, our aspirations have grown as we have matured, and so that means that we're actually much more distant from where, from, from from where we want to ultimately be, from where we want to ultimately be.

Mona: 21:27

So there was, when I was in the Middle East. There was once an interview with a journalist and one of the leaders in the region, and they asked him again how much of your aspirations for the country have you achieved? And this was in the early 2000s. And he said you know, like whatever, 20%. And then that same journalist came back several years later and asked that same question and he said it's 5%, Because the dreams had become so much bigger. And I feel that that is the same for us now that we've seen where the needs are.

Mona: 22:06

So, for example, we were initially, and continue to, be very focused on in-country delivery to train and place people in their country. But now we're thinking about well, what about job deserts across the world? How could we support individuals who live in job deserts anywhere in the world?

Sonal: 22:26

What's a job desert Mona?

Mona: 22:28

It's a place where you live, where there is very minimal job availability. Is it because of?

Sonal: 22:34

low population pockets.

Mona: 22:37

Just low business presence right To be able to create. Also, think of refugee populations.

Sonal: 22:46

And there's just not enough jobs right even though they're so, even though they're very skilled um oftentimes, so oftentimes, yes, yeah, yeah, yeah. So you know so job.

Mona: 22:58

Deserts was not something that we were thinking about in 2015 and today we are right and so that's what, the more that you do, the more you realize you can and should do in order to be in service of the mission love that.

Sonal: 23:12

Uh, fall in love with the problem, not with the solution. That's a great great point. Um, particularly when someone is listening and they're like I'm preparing a presentation, I'm preparing a pitch, we do want to fall in love with our solution. It feels so good. But that detachment needs to be practiced, that you're only looking at it from the point of view of the problem and I don't know who sent this philosopher, I don't know, is it Aristotle? The more I learn, the less I know. Yes, that's pretty much it.

Sonal: 23:40

That's what you just said, and I also think you're probably being very modest here, mona, when you say you're very blessed. You know you choose the team around you right and you've chosen good players, top players and someone who's listening today, who would like to get into the nonprofit world. Maybe they're changing careers and they're like I'd love to be a nonprofit. I'm very mission driven and you, I guess, do so many interviews, interviews, you do lots of hiring, particularly at you know the senior levels. What are some traits you see yourself looking for again and again that you know that it would be a good fit, it would be a good ad fit, an ad to the generationorg culture.

Mona: 24:23

Yeah, so probably a couple of things. I mean one, someone who has a builder mindset, you know. So if you think of builders and managers, so the world needs both, and certainly within an organization you need both, you need both. But when you are in the stage of going from zero to 10, or even 10 to 100, you very much need a group of builders who can take a concept or take a set of tools and turn it into something real on the ground, in whatever capacity that means. So builder is one part of it.

Mona: 25:12

Two is being very able and comfortable to navigate ambiguity. You know the world is changing rapidly on so many different fronts, whether it's the labor markets or geopolitically or whatever it is, and so you have to be able to roll with the punches, and so that is a really important attribute. And then, obviously, we need people with deep expertise in a particular area. But much more importantly is the ability to be cross-functional. You know, to understand, to not be so deep in your area that you can't build bridges with all of the other functions or with other regions, because ultimately, it's at that intersectionality that you see the most opportunity. So those are just a couple of things.

Sonal: 26:08

Yeah, yeah, no, that's very useful Builder. You do need builders and managers, but someone who's comfortable building, you know, because, also a not-for-profit, that entrepreneurial mindset. You got to do more with less. There's a word in. There's a word in Hindi. I love this word. It was used by a very famous lady. Her name is Laila. She passed away at 37 years old. She passed away from cancer in the US and she did a lot of work on poverty alleviation and she defined jagar. The Hindi word jagar literally means do more with less.

Sonal: 26:41

So my Hindi speaking listeners are going to be like, be, like, oh, yeah, we know there's always a solution, you know, and do it in a way, obviously in a legal sort of way, um, but that mindset of an ambiguity and being comfortable with ambiguity and not, you know, having anxiety about but I don't know what this means for us like, yeah, we'll figure it out, you know, step by step. Um, love that. And lastly, the wearing. Sometimes we have to wear many hats. You know, doing one thing isn't good enough because we want to do more. We want to do more with less resources, because resources are not thrown around like they are in the private sector. Understand, I understand that. So that was very useful, thank you.

Sonal: 27:24

I have a juicy, juicy question for you coming up, mona. We talked about education and the importance of it, and I love that you took your own so very seriously with studying. You know studies at Stanford and MIT, which are prestigious institutions, not very easy to get in. I'm guessing lots of hustle, burning midnight oil, and you know taking yourself seriously and making the commitment to make that happen.

Sonal: 27:51

And now here we are in the 2020s, where we see this sort of I don't know if you see this, but I see this growing movement a little bit like anti-education, especially amongst the youth on social media and some of it I understand. You know about high expenses, educational debt, particularly in countries like the US, where higher education is exorbitantly priced and some even go so far as to say and LinkedIn has come out and said this who's doing more skill-based hiring versus, you know, skill and talent-based hiring versus education and diploma and all of that stuff? I want to know your thoughts on all this. And in 2024 and beyond, mona, what do you see is? You know, the changing role of education?

Mona: 28:46

So there's so many thoughts sparked by those questions. Let me just start by saying education has always been important. It will continue to be important, because learning is how we grow. Learning is how we get new skills, because learning is how we grow. Learning is how we get new skills. This debate right now, in my mind, is about what kind of education is worth it. So it is not about education yes or no. It's about what is the kind of education that will propel a child, an adult, forwards, a child, an adult forwards, and that's a very important distinction.

Mona: 29:37

When you look at the research, what I will also say is that you know there have been all types of research that try to understand. Are there certain degrees, so academic degrees or academic majors, that have a greater ROI in terms of income relative to others? And those you know historically have said, well, if you go into STEM disciplines, you will do, you have a higher ROI than if you do a liberal arts degree. But I'll tell you, you know, I saw research just the other day about cognitive flexibility, you know. So those who have a double major, who go into, you know, let's say, chemistry and literature, right, you know where you have a double major in different disciplines. They actually have the highest ROI of all Because they're because of the nature of that work, they are very deliberately in interdisciplinary types of roles, which is much harder to automate or digitize, as you think, moving forwards. So this is just a long way of saying there is an important reckoning about what is the type of education that is most useful and which most accelerates learning.

Mona: 30:56

There are movements now around how do we do more bite-sized learning? So, instead of you doing like you know a, you know doing a, let's say, a master's for a year or an undergraduate degree for this period of time, is it more useful to sort of have like learning on demand, if you will right, you know. So this is a specific skill, here's a, here's a learning for it, et cetera. There is that. There is the skills-based hiring movement that you just mentioned, but I will also and that's learning that employers need to do. But I will also say there there is both from our own research and recent research put out by others there is a lot more talk about skills-based hiring and not as many companies actually hiring in that way. Actually, there are many companies that one don't believe that a shift to skills-based hiring is the best path for them, and second companies that say that they are doing it, but they are hiring the way they traditionally hired, and it is those who have college degrees. So there's still a lot to be worked out on how do you get employers to shift.

Mona: 32:11

But what I would lastly say is you know, with everything that has been happening post-COVID with AI, there has never been a higher premium on how do you learn quickly than there is today, Because job tasks keep changing, because new professions are emerging, and so figuring out and proactively investing in yourself so that you learn how to use whichever AI tool is the one that you prefer. I mean, it's just you've got to invest proactively in yourself, learning that, Even if you are teaching yourself through available online material or content, don't just wait for an employer to train you. That will come, but employers are still also figuring that out themselves and in the meantime, you can materially make yourself more valuable in your role by owning these things yourself. So those are a lot of different thoughts, Sonal, not the most organized way, but that's what your question sparked for me.

Sonal: 33:22

No, that's very useful. My question wasn't the most organized to begin with, so your answer was very useful. And I love the last part of your answer because learning has never been more accessible, more affordable and more portable literally in a couple of inches in our pocket than it is today. So there's no excuse and no need to wait for and not you know, we have to be proactive and not wait for someone to do this for us, and I'm so glad you made that distinction between formal learning, formal education, versus informally doing it, with or without. You know the cape and the sash and that tassels. You know that graduation cap, which, I guess if we Google education, if you Google that as an image, that is what comes up. You know formal degree and somebody a dean is speaking, but there's so many different ways of learning. The other thing that you said was the say-do gap what they say versus what they do.

Sonal: 34:24

that's important to highlight because a lot of companies private, public, not profit, whatever they are. A lot of them are giant behemoths and things can move at a glacial pace. So in spite of I'm now, I'm gone, you know, negating myself but in spite of all the trends we see, it is still still like you know at the surface. But deeper, people take a while to change habits. Our old habits die hard, right. So people say they're doing skills based hiring, but when you interview people in your research, oh yeah, you have a four year degree, we want to hire you. A lot of hiring came from that source. So I'm so glad you talked about that. All right, fantastic. So, mona, go ahead.

Mona: 35:17

I'll just add one piece of research which we did.

Mona: 35:19

So we were looking at how to support underrepresented communities to enter tech roles across the world, and so we surveyed thousands of employers and job seekers in tech roles existing employees across eight countries.

Mona: 35:34

What we found is that, even though employers something like 60% plus of them said that hiring for entry-level roles needs to be completely overhauled and that they struggle to find the talent they need, over the last three years, the vast majority of employers actually raised education requirements and work experience requirements, and so this is why why enough managers to be able to sufficiently train and support entry-level hires who don't have those degrees or don't have the two years of work experience? Right, and so we want so actually, like for 94 percent of companies, the entry-level role as we understand it has gone. You know so the entry-level role being like this is your first experience in the room. Know so the entry-level role being like this is your first experience. So the entry-level job is just gone, right, and that's a really important realization. So I just share that to say that it's very entrenched and requires a lot of deep exploration of why are employers making these choices? Because they make choices for a reason and we need to understand them deeply in order to figure out is there a different path here?

Sonal: 37:13

Yeah, and they make choices for a reason, they make decisions for a reason and we have to follow the money. That reason comes from a lot of times because time is limited, resources are limited and ultimately it's about the bottom line. I love that, but I don't love that. I like that. You gave this nuanced approach. But the entry-level role hey, my first job in my life, hey, welcome, if that had gone right. And they keep saying two to five years, two to five years. That's not fair. And they keep saying two to five years, two to five years. That's not fair because that's setting that 21, 22 year old up for failure, because they're like it also means it's really important to do the internships and the apprenticeship, you know.

Mona: 37:56

So, all of these things that give you exposure while you are still a student, yes, become all the more important.

Sonal: 38:03

Yes, exactly, exactly, totally understand. All right, mona. So we've come close to the end and I want to ask you when you look back on your career these 25 years or so, is there one standout, defining moment that supercharged your career and helped you to move closer to your current success?

Mona: 38:23

Really hitting me with the big questions.

Sonal: 38:24

here it's kind of my. Thing.

Mona: 38:34

I think the Arab Spring Occupy Movement period was just really formative in where should I spend the next part of, or the next chapter of, my career. I will put it that way. You know, sometimes there are defining moments in time because of where you are, because of who you are, that really brings clarity as to where is the most value-adding place you can be, and so that very much set me on the generation path. So I will pick that one as my most defining moment.

Sonal: 39:20

Profound. Yeah, absolutely Totally understand that. All right, fantastic. Dr Mona Murshed, how can people learn more about you and follow your work?

Mona: 39:31

So our website is generationorg, so please do visit and, for anyone who would like to get in touch, we also on the website. There are many ways, just through the contact us, to be in touch if you either want to explore our programming or want to continue this dialogue. And, sonal, thank you so much for hosting me today.

Sonal: 39:56

No, my pleasure. Thank you so much for your time today and we wish you the best with generationorg and beyond. Hey there, thank you for taking the time to listen to today's show. If you loved it, please do leave me a review on Apple Podcasts. I search high and low to bring you the very best guests, and I'm so proud to bring you their stories and game-changing career lessons. The best compliment that you could ever give me is taking a screenshot of today's episode and sharing it with your LinkedIn network and tagging me at Sonal Behl S-O-N-A-L-B-A-H-L. All right, I look forward to spending time together on the next episode of the how I Got Hired podcast. Take care of yourself and bye for now.