Lift Up Connections with Christine Perfetti
Lift Up Connections is where powerhouse mid-career and senior women come to tell their stories about career pivots, identity shifts, leadership growth, motherhood, and navigating the messy middle of life. Hosted by Christine Perfetti, a product leader, single mom by choice, and founder of Lift Up Connections, each episode is a real and unfiltered conversation about what it means to lead, live, and stay authentic to yourself no matter what the world is expecting from you.
Episodes
From Downturn to Breakthrough: Kyle Soucy on Projective Techniques, Lean Experiments and Being Brave
In this episode, Christine Perfetti talks with Kyle Soucy, founder of Usable Interface and host of The UX Consultants Lounge.
Kyle has spent more than 20 years in UX research and is now writing a book on projective techniques, methods like collaging and sentence completion that surface insights traditional interviews often miss. She shares how these techniques open the door to deeper human understanding while also requiring careful...
If you have ever wondered what HBS alumni learn about reinvention after graduation, Kristen Fitzpatrick has the inside view.
In this conversation, I sit down with Kristen, Senior Managing Director of Alumni Relations and Career & Professional Development at Harvard Business School, who has spent over two decades guiding students and alumni through pivotal career moments. Kristen brings brilliant wisdom on reinvention, resilienc...
What does it take to reinvent your career again and again without losing yourself in the process? In this conversation, Stanford University lecturer, bestselling author, and product leader Christina Wodtke opens up about her nonlinear path from art school to Silicon Valley startups, to teaching at Stanford.
We talk about:
- The challenges (and joys) of being a woman in tech past 50 and how to reclaim power, voice, and agency wh...
In this episode, Christine sits down with Nicole Yankelovich, a technologist, startup founder, photographer, and teacher whose career has been shaped by a series of “happy accidents.”
Nicole shares her journey from cofounding a research institute at Brown, to leading research at Sun Microsystems, to creating her own startup, and ultimately finding a new calling in photography and instruction. Along the way, she reflects on the less...
In this episode, Christine explores the powerful framework of the “achieving brain” and the “awakened brain,” inspired by Dr. Lisa Miller’s groundbreaking research in her book, The Awakened Brain.
Christine shares a reflection exercise on “red doors” and “yellow doors” moments when we strive and push for something that just won’t open, and the surprising shifts that happen when we pause, look around, and notice the open doors waiti...
This week, I sit down with Bosky Mukherjee, CEO and founder of SheTrailblazes to get real about what actually moves careers forward in this market.
Bosky shares why “saying yes to more work” and “just speaking up” are outdated scripts, and replaces them with narrative authority (communicating impact in C-suite language), commercial fluency (knowing how money moves in your company), and a practical path to achieving sponsorship, not...
Christine Perfetti sits down with UX researcher turned holistic wellness coach Tonia Bartz to explore what it really takes to move beyond burnout and create a life that feels aligned.
After navigating a cancer diagnosis and a career pivot, Tonia developed her Perfectly Imperfect Wellness Method, a framework that helps people reclaim their days, embrace imperfection, and find joy in the messy middle.
In this episode, Christine and T...
In this episode, Christine Perfetti sits down with Meena Kothandaraman, co-founder of Twig + Fish Research Practice and a pioneer in UX research to explore why the most valuable thing researchers is connection, not just answers to study questions. Meena shares her journey including human factors work, motherhood, and leading a micro-agency focused on the power, positioning, and practice of qualitative research. She discusses how ...
In this live panel episode, host Christine Perfetti brings together four powerhouse leaders, Melissa Appel, Rob Fitzgibbon, Malini Rao, and Stephanie Gerber Wilson, for an honest conversation about career reinvention in today’s messy landscape.
You will hear their stories of both planned and unexpected pivots, from moving into higher education and launching coaching businesses to writing true crime books and starting a political po...
In this special episode, the mic gets flipped.
Christine Perfetti, founder of Lift Up and longtime UX leader, is interviewed by her son, Ben Perfetti. What follows is a deeply personal and heartfelt conversation about curiosity, career pivots, fear, growth and what it really means to build a meaningful life and career.
Ben asks thoughtful questions about Christine’s childhood goals, why she didn’t become a therapist, how she discov...
In this episode, I sit down with Maigen Thomas, accessibility advocate, UX leader, and founder of Level 11 Technology.
Maigen shares her winding journey from flight attendant to tech founder and how some brave leaps led her to a career focused on equity and purpose.
We discuss:
- The emotional side of career pivots and why tears can be a sign of growth and transformation
- How Maigen found her calling in accessibility and inclusiv...
In this solo episode, I am sharing the most personal talk I have ever given.
Two years ago, my consulting work disappeared almost overnight. After years of leading product and design teams and advising organizations like GoFundMe, Penn Medicine, and Harvard Business Review, I suddenly found myself lost and unsure of what came next.
This was my messy middle.
It turned out it was also the beginning of everything, including my own rei...
Dr. Jade Singleton is a former investment banker turned DEI strategist, researcher, and founder of the IKONI Collective, a wellness collective devoted to centering and sustaining Black women. She’s also the creator of Ninety-Two, a new documentary funded through Kickstarter (ending July 22) that tells the story of Black women quietly leading a new blueprint for liberation through healing, rest, and collective resistance. The tit...
In this episode of Lift Up Connections, Christine sits down with Melissa Appel, product leader, author of Aligned: Stakeholder Management for Product Leaders, and a longtime supporter of women forging their own paths in tech and life. Christine and Melissa first connected as mothers navigating demanding careers, and their relationship has evolved through shared vulnerability, values, and vision. They explore what it means to reima...
This week, I’m doing something a little different. I am the one in the interview seat. I am excited to share my recent conversation with longtime friend and UX pioneer Kyle Soucy on her brilliant podcast, The UX Consultants’ Lounge.
In this personal episode, Kyle and I explore how my two-decade UX consulting career laid the groundwork for Lift Up Connections to support mid- and senior-level women at career and life inflection poi...
In this episode, Christine Perfetti chats with Shanae Chapman, founder of Nerdy Diva, civic tech leader, AI innovator, and advocate for inclusive design and equity in tech.
Shanae shares her journey from growing up in North St. Louis to building an impressive career in public service, UX, and entrepreneurship.
Christine and Shanae discuss the power of role models and mentors, and how Shanae's navigating challenging industry shifts ...
Christine interviews Catherine Norman, a renowned counselor, about managing the inner critic, one of the most common challenges facing women in business and tech.
Catherine breaks down why our brains have a negativity bias and explores how inner critics develop at different ages throughout our lives: from the emotional 5-year-old who experiences all-o...
In this episode, Christine chats with Marli Mesibov, the Content Strategy Director at Verily, an Alphabet company, to explore her journey from theater stage manager to content strategy leader in health tech.
Marli opens up about the twists and turns her career has taken, the creative roots of her UX strategy and content design work, and the intentional choices that helped her redefine success.
Marli shares how her background in the...
"You will never have more of what you want until you want what you already have.”
Christine Perfetti chats with Malaika Simmons, TEDx speaker, founder of Momentology Media, and creator of the Momentology™ Method to explore what it means to live with intention, purpose, and authenticity. Malaika shares her story as a "facilitator of discovery" where she leveraged her psychology, history, and neuroscience background to create Mome...
In this episode of Lift Up Connections, Christine sits down with Amanda Stockwell, a longtime UX consultant, Duke University professor, and co-founder of The List, a nonprofit connecting university students to startups.
We explore what it means to take big and brave career steps without knowing exactly where you will land. Amanda shares how she transitioned from corporate roles to consulting, then into teaching and nonprofit leader...
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