Interview: Vanessa Womack — Turning Career Uncertainty Into a Purposeful Pivot
Long before Vanessa Womack, MBA, became a LinkedIn Learning instructor with more than 200,000 learners on her course roster, she was a teenager in Future Business Leaders of America, riding across her home state to regional competitions and fielding questions from a local television crew about what business education could mean for students like her. It was the 1970s, in the post-Civil Rights South, and the opportunity was rare enough to be worth noticing. Decades later, that same instinct still shapes her work as a career-transition coach, educator, and advocate for inclusive leadership: show up, ask better questions, and open doors for others.
The Origin Story: A Mentor’s Courage, and a Philosophy Born From Loss
Womack didn’t set out to become a coach. Early in her consulting career, she partnered with a small-business owner who saw her potential and pushed her toward training and development work. Together, they served as career-transition consultants for a national human resources corporation, coaching employees through layoffs and leadership changes, and eventually co-hosting a local public broadcasting talk show on work-life balance and advancement in corporate cultures that didn’t always embrace diversity and inclusion.
Then her mentor was diagnosed with breast cancer. Rather than slow down, she launched an eco-friendly residential cleaning business, which Womack helped run. She died about two years later. “Her courage, entrepreneurial spirit, and confidence in me continue to shape the coach I strive to be,” Womack says. That loss became the root of a coaching philosophy grounded in servant leadership: serving first, modeling the behavior she hopes to inspire, and staying mindful, as she puts it, of “our shared humanity and imperfection.”
A Journey That Started in the Post-Civil Rights South
Womack traces her path back to high school, where public-speaking competitions with her FBLA chapter and that early television interview planted the idea that a corporate or government career was possible, even in a region where office jobs were still largely closed to young Black women. After a first year at Tennessee State University, she moved to New York City, completed her undergraduate degree at Baruch College, and later earned a Master’s degree from Averett University in her hometown of Danville, Virginia.
That path through leadership roles, community engagement, and business relationship-building now shows up in how she coaches: less about supplying answers, more about asking the questions that help clients find their own. It’s also the throughline behind her LinkedIn Learning course, “Managing a Diverse Team,” which has carried her approach to inclusive leadership to an audience far beyond the clients she coaches one-on-one.
Coaching Methodology: Panic, Pause, Pivot
At the center of Womack’s practice is Panic-Pause-Pivot: Preparing for Your Next Professional Move, a career-transition program built to move clients from uncertainty to a workable plan. Participants run a SWOTT analysis on their career goals, map out educational pathways for new skills, name the obstacles that have been holding them back, and leave with a written action plan, sharpened by Womack’s own real-time research into market trends and each client’s specific situation.
“I want to plant seeds that bear good fruit,” she says, “by helping people recognize their potential, choose a direction, and take meaningful steps toward growth.” It’s a method built less on formulas and more on structured reflection, giving clients room to think clearly before they act.
Preparing Coaches for the Realities Their Clients Face
For Womack, staying current isn’t optional. To keep her practice aligned with the International Coaching Federation’s core competencies, she joined the Embrace Change Coaching Certification (ECCC) cohort, created specifically to prepare coaches to address challenges facing BIPOC communities. She now studies alongside a diverse group of professionals from across the U.S. and Canada, “even when the room is on Zoom.”
“Knowledge is powerful,” she says, “but wisdom grows when we continue learning, reflecting, and applying what we discover in service of others.” It’s a discipline she treats as inseparable from the coaching itself; confidence in the client relationship, she says, depends on it.
Final Insight: It’s Never Too Late to Be What You Might Have Been
For years, Womack has kept a magnet on her refrigerator with a quote attributed to George Eliot: “It’s never too late to be what you might have been.” The meaning has shifted for her over time. “Today, my focus is less on who I might have been and more on what I can do with the time that remains,” she says. “Whatever is right and good, whatever helps others grow, is what I want to pass on.”
To learn more about Vanessa Womack’s coaching work, including her Panic-Pause-Pivot program, connect with her on LinkedIn or subscribe to her newsletter, Pass It On.
