Caroline Wanga on the Career Path No One Tells You About | from Hello Monday
Worklife with Molly Graham
TED
4.8 • 9.4K Ratings
🗓️ 28 May 2026
⏱️ 30 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Careers rarely move in a straight line, and for many people, the old roadmap no longer works. In this special feed drop from LinkedIn’s Hello Monday, host Jessi Hempel sits down with Caroline Wanga for a conversation about building a career with intention, authenticity, and room to evolve.
As president and CEO of Essence Ventures and co-founder of Wanga Woman, Caroline has spent years helping people rethink success on their own terms. Before leading Essence, she spent 15 years at Target, rising from intern to the C-suite — a journey that taught her the value of continuously revisiting, reshaping, and even reinventing your career map.
Jessi and Caroline discuss:
- Why your “next right move” may not look like anyone else’s
- Why playing with your career map, not perfecting it, leads to clarity
- How, and when, Caroline has created her own career maps
- The role of authenticity in leadership and life
- What it really takes to live and work with personal purpose
- Tools and mindsets for building a meaningful career in today’s world
Caroline also shares insights from her memoir, I’m Highly Percent Sure, and offers a refreshing perspective for anyone questioning what comes next.
Follow Jessi Hempel and Caroline Wanga on LinkedIn, and listen to more Hello Monday wherever you get your podcasts
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hey, work lifers. I'm bringing you something special today that I think you're going to love. |
| 0:07.8 | My friend Jesse Hempel hosts a podcast called Hello Monday. It's one of my favorites, and if you don't already listen, you should. |
| 0:15.1 | What I love about her show is how wide she casts the net. Leaders, authors, thinkers, all circling the same question. |
| 0:22.8 | What does work actually mean to us? This episode featuring Caroline Wonga, president and CEO of |
| 0:29.9 | Essence Ventures, tells the story of how she figured out what kind of career she actually wanted |
| 0:35.1 | and how she knew when it was time to make a move. |
| 0:38.4 | It's the kind of conversation where someone's specific experience ends up feeling really |
| 0:43.8 | universal. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. And if you want more, you can find Hello |
| 0:48.9 | Monday wherever you get your podcasts. |
| 0:55.5 | Forget your age. |
| 0:58.6 | Focus on where you are in your professional career. |
| 1:01.4 | Are you in a place where you know what you want to do next or you don't? |
| 1:03.3 | If you don't play with a mat. |
| 1:04.9 | That's how it works. |
| 1:07.5 | And I will probably have a career map for the rest of my life. But I will probably have 682 of them. |
| 1:13.0 | From the news team at LinkedIn, I'm Jesse Hempel, and this is Hello Monday. It's our show |
| 1:18.3 | about work on our own terms. And if you've found yourself here today, my guess is that you are |
| 1:24.4 | in the middle of the question that so many of us are asking ourselves, |
| 1:28.3 | what am I supposed to do next? |
| 1:31.1 | I mean, what's my next right move? |
| 1:33.5 | Be it here, somewhere else. |
| 1:35.5 | How do I make the money I need? |
... |
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