Ellora Collective

Ellora Collective A global community of professional connections, development
and growth, no matter where you are in the world.

When you think about your career today, what feels:• Yours?• Ours?• Theirs?"Theirs" might be an employer, a visa system,...
04/06/2026

When you think about your career today, what feels:

• Yours?
• Ours?
• Theirs?

"Theirs" might be an employer, a visa system, family expectations, a labour market, or a partner's career that naturally carried more weight in the decision-making process.

Most of us don't consciously set out to build our careers around someone else's priorities.

But over time, competing influences shape the choices we make.

It's a simple question, but not always an easy one to answer.

What feels most "yours" in your career right now?

Join us in this month’s ellora. Lab. with Yvonne Quahe to unpack these questions: https://www.elloracollective.com/join

Dual careers are often talked about as a logistical challenge. Timing, roles, locations, visas. But in reality, what sit...
03/06/2026

Dual careers are often talked about as a logistical challenge. Timing, roles, locations, visas. But in reality, what sits underneath is far more complex.

Decisions about whose career moves forward, whose pauses, and how those decisions are made don’t just shape short-term outcomes. Over time, they influence confidence, identity, financial independence and the balance of a relationship itself.

For many globally mobile professionals, these decisions aren’t always deliberate. They happen gradually, shaped by opportunity, circumstance, or what feels easiest in the moment, and it’s only later that the longer-term impact becomes visible.

This month Yvonne Quahe is joining us the ellora. Lab. to move the conversation beyond simply "making it work", to explore what it really means to navigate two careers over time.

The August ellora. Lab is open, and this month we’re discussing one of the most significant factors influencing both tal...
01/06/2026

The August ellora. Lab is open, and this month we’re discussing one of the most significant factors influencing both talent mobility and talent attraction: dual careers.

Meet Yvonne Quahe, a globally experienced career advisor, coach, facilitator and author of Who’s Career? Yours, Mine, or Ours?, with decades of experience working with globally mobile professionals.

Drawing on both professional experience and real-life case studies, Yvonne brings a clear and honest perspective to the realities of dual careers, including the trade-offs, patterns and consequences that are often left unspoken.

In this Lab. we’ll explore:
✨ How career decisions are actually made in relationships (and what influences them)
✨ The difference between short-term compromise and long-term impact
✨ Why “default” decisions can lead to imbalance over time
✨ The role of structure (visas, language, work rights) in shaping what’s possible
✨ What more equitable dual career models can look like in practice

Join ellora. now to access the Lab: https://www.elloracollective.com/join

Not ready to commit to a membership, but keen to join this session? We’ve got you!

Use this link to join the session and if you're keen to join ellora. at a later date, we'll put the US$49 towards your first month's membership - https://www.elloracollective.com/paid-webinar

One of the things we love most about our peer-to-peer mentoring sessions is that it gives us a chance to take the conver...
31/05/2026

One of the things we love most about our peer-to-peer mentoring sessions is that it gives us a chance to take the conversation out of the Lab. and into the real world where our members are applying what they’ve learned.

This month, members came together to continue exploring the ideas from Zoë Hayes' Personal Brand Lab. The conversation was thoughtful, honest and practical, with members sharing their own experiences, challenges and takeaways.

A huge thank you to our mentoring partner GOJII for making these conversations possible, and to Zoë for giving us so much to unpack this month.

We can't wait to see where next month's conversations take us.

What if you gave yourself three uninterrupted hours to think about your future?Just you, a coffee (or a wine - our Perso...
30/05/2026

What if you gave yourself three uninterrupted hours to think about your future?

Just you, a coffee (or a wine - our Personal Brand expert Zoë Hayes strongly recommends both), a notebook, and somewhere you love being.

Most planning exercises ask you to set goals. This one asks you to write memories from a year that hasn't happened yet.

Start with: "It's [Day, Date, Year] and I cannot believe the year I've had. First..."

Then keep writing.

This isn't manifestation. This isn't positive thinking. This isn't vision boarding. This is strategic planning for your brain. And according to Zoë, it works.

Access Zoë's Future Self Visioning Exercise and subscribe to her newsletter here: https://www.zoehayes.co/future-self-visioning-exercise

27/05/2026

So how do you stop treating your intro like something to survive and start using it as a tool?

In her Personal Brand Lab. Zoë Hayes broke it down into three simple jobs:
1. Help people understand who you are
2. Help people help you
3. Make them remember you

1️⃣ The first part is not your title or LinkedIn headline. It’s helping people get a feel for who you are when you show up. Your energy, strengths, perspective, the patterns that consistently show up across your work, relationships or community. Especially after relocation or a big life shift, this can feel surprisingly hard. But people connect with humans, not resumes.

2️⃣ The second part is giving people something to work with. People genuinely want to help, connect dots and open doors, but they need direction. What are you exploring? What kinds of people, opportunities or conversations are you hoping to find more of? Your intro isn’t just describing you, it’s activating someone else’s network on your behalf.

3️⃣ The third part is the bit Zoë borrowed from the advertising world. Surprise creates attention. Emotion creates memory. This is the detail, story or observation that creates the lean-in moment and stops you blending into the beige sea of networking intros. It doesn’t need to sound impressive. It just needs to sound real.
Then practice it. School pickup. Coffee catch-up. A networking event. A dinner party. Anywhere. Pay attention to what creates energy, connection and more meaningful conversations.

26/05/2026

One of the most underestimated and underused personal branding tools? Your 1:1 introduction.

Most people treat it like something to survive. They default to an old title, a job function, a rushed explanation, or a vague answer they hope ends the conversation quickly.

But your intro isn’t admin. It’s positioning.

To borrow from the marketing world, it’s your billboard. A tiny window to help someone understand who you are, what you bring, and where you’re headed.

For accompanying partners or anyone navigating transition, this gets even harder. Relocation strips away the familiar identity wrapper: the title, the context, the network. But often you haven’t fully landed in the next version of yourself yet either.

That “in between” space can make introductions feel awkward, uncomfortable, even disorienting.

This clip from Zoë Hayes’ Personal Brand Lab reframes intros completely: not as something to get through, but as a tool. A chance to communicate who you are now, not just who you were before.

22/05/2026

We had Zoë Hayes in the ellora. Lab and wow did she deliver!!

One concept that really landed was “identity lag”: the disconnect between who you’ve become internally and the way you still describe yourself (or are seen externally).

For accompanying partners, relocation can accelerate this because you’re leaving behind a role, a network, a geography, while going through huge internal growth and change.

What Zoë unpacked so brilliantly was that this often isn’t a career crisis at all. It’s an identity challenge…and more importantly, an opportunity!

This personal branding lab was not about becoming louder online. It was about identity before visibility. Getting clear on who you are now, what you bring, and how to make that visible in a new environment so the right opportunities can find you.

Counting down to our May ellora. Lab with Zoë Hayes on Personal Brand.🗓️ 20 May 2026🕘 11:00am - 1:00pm GMT+08If you’ve e...
18/05/2026

Counting down to our May ellora. Lab with Zoë Hayes on Personal Brand.

🗓️ 20 May 2026
🕘 11:00am - 1:00pm GMT+08

If you’ve ever hesitated when someone asks “what do you do?” this one’s for you.

ellora. members can join this session live or watch on demand, and will also receive pre-work, a follow-up activity and access to ongoing conversation on the ellora. platform, including live peer-to-peer mentoring.

✨Join ellora. now to access the Lab: https://www.elloracollective.com/join

✨Not a member yet? Not a problem!

You can join this session for US$49, and if you decide to become a member later, we’ll credit it towards your first month’s membership: https://www.elloracollective.com/paid-webinar

See you in the Lab.

What did you actually say the last time someone asked you, “what do you do?”Not the version you wish you’d said, the one...
14/05/2026

What did you actually say the last time someone asked you, “what do you do?”
Not the version you wish you’d said, the one that came out in the moment.

For a lot of people, especially when things have shifted, it doesn’t quite land. It’s not wrong, it just doesn’t feel like the full picture anymore.

That’s where we’re starting this month with Zoë Hayes.

Join ellora. now to explore identity before visibility https://www.elloracollective.com/join

Not ready to commit to a membership, but keen to join this session? We’ve got you!

Use this link to join the session and if you're keen to join ellora. at a later date, we'll put the US$49 towards your first month's membership -https://www.elloracollective.com/paid-webinar

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