Alumni Career Management

Ellen is the Senior Manager of the McCombs School of Business Alumni Career Management at the University of Texas at Austin. She holds a Professional Certified Coach (PCC) level certification from the International Coaching Federation (ICF), a master’s degree in Career Counseling, and certifications as an Executive and Leadership Development Coach, Career Management Coach, Personal Branding Strategist, Brain-Based Leadership Coach, and is certified in the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator® (MBTI®).

Ellen brings over 20 years of career coaching experience with six of those years being a small business owner and successfully running her own Mindfulness & Career Coaching business for leaders. Ellen has experience working with business undergrads, MBAs, mid-to-senior level managers, and executive leaders who are looking to refine their managerial skills, while taking their careers to the next level. She has helped thousands of students and alumni make career choices. Whether critiquing a resume, preparing for an interview, or creating a plan for a career change, it is keeping the “client’s best interests” in mind that drives her coaching. Her style and expertise revolve around using brain-based, neuroscience research to help her clients draw out their strengths, focus on their goals, and push themselves out of their comfort zones, in order to reach their goals. She firmly believes in Brene Brown’s quote: "If you're comfortable, you're not learning."

Her speaking and training have led her to partner with such institutions as Dell, The Food Network, Oracle, and Daimler Chrysler. Her coach training seminars have reached MBA and university coaches at institutions such as Cambridge, Dartmouth, Texas Christian University, Michigan State, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Tulane, University of Iowa, and the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Ellen has been a career thought leader and has held Board positions with the International Coach Federation-Wisconsin Chapter, the Career Thought Leaders Association, the MW-Association for Colleges and Employers and has been an active member with the MBA Career Services and Employer Alliance.

When she’s not coaching, Ellen is either teaching Pilates, doing something outside in nature, or dancing. She also enjoys baking, laughing, and spending time with her partner and two boys.

Robin Hedges is an Alumni Career Coach at the McCombs School of Business at the University of Texas at Austin. With 17+ years of career coaching and consulting experience, Robin has coached a diverse set of clients with bachelor, master, and doctoral education. This includes new, incoming undergraduate students, plus experienced alumni. Robin has expertise in accounting, business analytics, finance, marketing, operations & supply chain management, and organizational behavior & development.  She enjoys facilitating discussions, workshops, and programs that enable participants to learn from one another’s collective wisdom and experience.

Robin is also experienced in cultivating relationships with recruiters from diverse industries including accounting, consulting, finance, healthcare, and technology. She especially enjoyed sharing what she learned from employers to help students and alumni achieve their career goals.

Whether working with new graduates or experienced professionals, Robin believes clients have the answers they seek inside them. Her role is to ask questions and guide them to clarify and articulate their values, vision, and goals, as well as to share information and resources that support their forward movement. Her style is characterized by authenticity, openness, and a willingness to learn, grow, and change.

Robin holds an executive coaching certificate from the Weatherhead School of Management at Case Western Reserve University and is working toward completing the Board Certified Coach™ (BCC) credential in 2021. She is certified in the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator® (MBTI®) and DDI Targeted Selection® (behavior-based interviewing). She earned a master’s degree in higher education administration from Western Illinois University and a bachelor’s degree in psychology from Bowling Green State University.

Robin resides in a Cleveland, Ohio suburb with her husband, two sons, dog, and cat. Outside of work, Robin can be found creating & canning preserves and pickles, rooting for her hometown baseball team, or spending time with her family.

Jamie Kernohan, M.B.A., is a marketing and advertising expert, speaker, and certified career coach.  She has over 20 years of experience in the marketing, advertising, and media industry in Dallas.  As a certified career coach, she offers career advice through speaking engagements, podcasts, blogs, and videos.

She has her undergraduate in Communications from the University of Texas at Arlington, and her M.B.A. is from the University of Texas at Dallas in Marketing.

Her certified expertise lies within marketing and brand strategy, content strategy and execution, video creation and production, event planning, product development, career coaching, personal branding.

Her deep industry understanding was gained by working with top companies and brands in the Dallas area. She was in Media Planning and Buying for clients such as Dillard’s, Pepsi, Subway, Chevrolet, Chrysler, Honda/Acura (media budget of over $15 million) top ad agencies like Tracy Locke, Bozell, True North, and R.P. Alpha.

After her M.B.A. from UT Dallas, she was hired as the U.S. Product Marketing Manager for Skincare with Mary Kay (product launches grossing over $75 million skincare line). She managed the entire skincare line for Mary Kay over 25 SKUs and launched four significant products in her 6 .5 year tenure.

World Ventures- Rovia Travel was her next managerial role, and she created a team of 2 reports to brand trip experiences around the world. ($6 million budget branded experience) While at Rovia, she was an adjunct professor at the University of Texas at Dallas Jindal Naveen School of Management in Marketing and Communications and ended up with a full-time role at the University of Texas at Dallas Jindal Naveen School of Management a Career Management Center as a Corporate Liaison and Career Coach to the Fulltime M.B.A.s. 

She then moved to a career coaching and marketing hybrid role as a Certified Career Coach and Social Media Strategist with Southern Methodist University Cox School of Business Career Management Center. She created a career prep program for all specialty master students, Kickstart  G.O.A.L.S program that was showcased at M.B.A.C.S.E.A. 2019. The goal of this program was to prepare incoming M.S. students to start their career paths search early.  While coaching over 300 students at B.B.A., MS levels, she single-handedly increased social followers and engagement for the center and its events by over 1200%.  She left S.M.U. to start her own company in 2019.

She currently owns her own business, G.V.C. Marketing, L.L.C., and creates and executes marketing as a Fractional C.M.O. for clients in the skincare, real estate, interior design, physician marketing industries.

Congruently, she is a part-time alumni career coach and marketing consultant as a hybrid role for the new alumni career management center at the University of Texas at Austin McCombs School of Business. 

She volunteers and speaks on personal branding at many events with organizations, like A.T.D., A.W.M., A.A.F., A.M.A., Frisco Women’s League, N.C.L., Stonebriar Country Club Connect, Memorial High School in Frisco (her son attends), and the Frisco Chamber to help people recognize their brand and what it can do for them.

Dawn has joined the newly founded McCombs Alumni Career Management Center as a coach.  She is excited to launch such a great initiative and work with McCombs Alumni around the globe.  She has also founded and run a new venture called Charlie Box Leadership here in the Austin Startup scene, which seeks to democratize coaching and leadership development for all employees.  She believes individual impact can create a global difference and the most lasting change happens through relationships.

Prior to coming on-board, she was a Director at Duke Corporate Education, a global leadership professional services firm.  She facilitated the design and development of innovative learning solutions to help shape business leaders for what’s next.  Program topics include, authentic leadership, crisis management and organizational/individual resilience, which are still topics she would love to connect on!

Prior to joining Duke CE, Dawn has worked in career management for 12+years.  Most recently, at the Fuqua School of Business and prior to that, at the McCombs School of Business.  At Fuqua she led the finance sector in Career Management.  At McCombs, she has worked both in the undergraduate career office and the MPA office.  She knows us well and glad to be back!

Dawn has had the opportunity to work extensively within the financial services industry (including private equity, venture capital, investment banking, private wealth management, asset management and corporate finance), plus oil & gas, manufacturing, and retail.  While in that role she coached students for success in their career path as well as established key partnerships with companies that hired her students.  

Dawn has her Master of Science in Human Resource Development and her Bachelor of Arts in Psychology.  Dawn is certified in StrengthsFinder and Strengths Performance Leader, an assessment tool used to develop personal talents. You can learn more about Dawn’s experience via her LinkedIn profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dawnshaw/ 

Dawn is originally from Colorado, and now lives in Austin with her partner and three children.  She enjoys spending time with family and reading a good book!