After a mid-career break to focus on her family, this seasoned marketer is retooling her resume and undergoing training in artificial intelligence. – CNA

EASING THE PANDEMIC PRESSURE

Ms Gay’s career in marketing and branding has spanned 20 years, and included senior roles such as business director and general manager. In 2018, with her teenage son’s streaming exams and O-Levels coming up, she chose to leave her job as a senior marketing professional at a local bank to devote her attention to him.

Her decision to quit was not easy, nor did she make it lightly. Said Ms Gay, “Being a mother is a full-time job — it was one journey I hadn’t been able to fulfil 100 per cent as a working mum. But your family should come first. As one very senior person said to me before, you can replace a job, but you can never replace your family.”

But she didn’t leave the workforce entirely. While caring for her son, Ms Gay took on a six-month contract as a brand experience consultant and also attended weekly Friday workshops on Python coding and digital analytics. Because these skillsets are valuable in the new economy, she believed acquiring them would help her return to the professional world after his exams.