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Carol Fishman Cohen

CEO and Co-Founder

Carol Fishman Cohen, builder of employer career re-entry onboarding programs and leader of the iRelaunch #returntowork community (now over 125,000 strong) is a pioneer in the career re-entry space. Her viral TED talk "How to get back to work after a career break," has nearly 3.8 million views and is translated into 30 languages. 

Carol is the host of the award-winning 3,2,1 iRelaunch podcast. She is a regular contributor to Harvard Business Review, which started in 2012 with the seminal "The 40-Year-Old Intern." Her 2021 HBR article "Return to Work Programs Come of Age" examines the evolution of career reentry programs over nearly 20 years, features innovations and best practices for launching and running these programs, and provides expert advice for the visionary manager proposing a return to work program to senior leadership. Her articles have also been published in NBCNews.com, Forbes, Next Avenue, and other popular sites. Regularly quoted in the national and international press as a subject matter expert on career re-entry, and a sought-after international speaker, Carol has addressed over 1,500 audiences.

Carol was shortlisted for the Thinkers50 Distinguished Achievement Awards in the "Ideas into Practice" category in 2023 and in the "Talent" category in 2017, as well as being named to the 2017 Thinkers50 Radar list of 30 leading management thinkers. She received the Target Storyteller's Award at the 2019 Massachusetts Conference for Women. Carol received the 2017 "Enterprising Woman Award" from the Women's Enterprise Development Center and the 2017 Society of Women Engineers President's Award for co-founding the STEM Re-entry Task Force. In 2018, Carol received the National Military Spouse Impact Award for her significant contributions in the area of military spouse employment. iRelaunch was a finalist for the 2017 MassTLC Building a Better Workforce Award. 

iRelaunch produces the iRelaunch Return to Work Conference, the largest and longest running career reentry event in the U.S., and works with over 350 clients on career reentry programs and programming. iRelaunch co-led the STEM Re-entry Task Force with the Society of Women Engineers for nearly ten years between 2015 and 2025, during which 44 employer members, representing industry leaders across sectors including technology, defense, aerospace, pharma, automobiles, industrial equipment, oil and gas, and more joined in order to create career reentry programs at their respective organizations.

Cohen is a relauncher herself, having returned to work at Bain Capital after an 11 year career break before co-founding iRelaunch. Her relaunch is documented in the Harvard Business School (HBS) case study "Carol Fishman Cohen: Professional Career Reentry." In addition, iRelaunch is the subject of a Stanford Graduate School of Business case study. A graduate of Pomona College and HBS, Carol lives in South Florida.  LinkedIn