How a Google Leadership Program "the Coffee Club" taught her the Skills to build a 6-figure business

Hello, hello, hello, hello, Driving Impact Collective. This is Katheline Jean-Pierre, your podcast host, and this week, this Thursday, I'm going to be releasing a massive episode. It's the incredible journey of Ivana Tai, who went from being an individual contributor in tech to launching a six-figure revenue-generating and already profitable business from scratch. And she talks about how she did it, how she found inspiration through her mentor, and also how she built the self-awareness and the confidence to overcome anything that was on her way. Even feeling that sometimes at Google you feel like you're one in a million, but she was able to overcome any challenges, own her power, build the confidence through the program that I created back in 2015 that's still running today, which is called the Coffee Club. So she talks about how she built the executive presence to be able to launch herself in the world as the CEO of Playfield. I'm super excited for you to listen up because she's still very early in her career. She's extremely self-aware and gracious with her time, energy, and resources. So listen up if you are thinking about what you want to do in your career, understanding what are are her recommendations and radical career advice is. So now let's press play. This is just an excerpt. I'm gonna be releasing the episode on Thursday. You were part of this leadership program, was called the Coffee Club. You had an executive presence goal and you did something extraordinary with Coffee Club.

It was all about lifting up other women within the organization. I was still pretty early, first time working in a corporate environment where you're interfacing with C-suite level representatives. And one thing I really wanted to work on was just executive presence. Like, how do I carry myself differently? How do I think about presenting things to key stakeholders?

And you reach out to the CEO of MM LaFleur. Can you tell me a little bit more about this?

So funny. It was at Google. Someone walked out of the women's bathroom wearing a trench coat that I was like, stunning. And I asked her where she got it from. And the lady told me she bought it from MM LaFleur. I looked it up online. I'd never heard of the brand. I was going through their website, went to their about me section, and then I read about the founders. Sarah LaFleur and how she had started the company with her own capital, how she had no prior experience in the fashion world, but just, you know, hustled. I didn't know her email, so I guessed it. I was like, most likely it's first name at domain.com. I told her how I discovered the brand and then just sent it off to her and she replied so quickly. Yeah, we set up a call then at her office in New York when I was traveling there for work. It genuinely just came from a place of passion and a desire to connect, and I think people can sense that.

Welcome to Driving Impact.