Carol Fishman Cohen, builder of corporate career re-entry programs and leader of the iRelaunch #returntowork community (now over 126,000 strong) is a pioneer in the career re-entry space. Her viral TED talk "How to get back to work after a career break," has over 3.7 million views and is translated into 30 languages. 

Carol is the host of the award-winning 3,2,1 iRelaunch podcast and the author of the seminal Harvard Business Review article "The 40-Year-Old Intern." Her 2021 HBR article "Return to Work Programs Come of Age" article examines the evolution of career reentry programs over nearly 20 years, features innovations and best practices for launching and running these programs, and provides expert advice for the visionary manager proposing a return to work program to senior leadership.  

Cohen is a regular contributor to HBR on career reentry topics and her articles have also been published in NBCNews.com, Forbes, Next Avenue, and other popular sites. Regularly quoted in the national press as a subject matter expert on career re-entry, and a sought-after international speaker, Carol has addressed over 1,500 audiences.

Carol received the Target Storyteller's Award at the 2019 Massachusetts Conference for Women. She was shortlisted for the Thinkers50 Distinguished Achievement Awards in 2023 and the "Talent" category in 2017, as well as being named to the 2017 Thinkers50 Radar list of 30 leading management thinkers. Also in 2017, Carol received the "Enterprising Woman Award" from the Women's Enterprise Development Center and the Society of Women Engineers President's Award for co-founding the STEM Re-entry Task Force. In 2018 Carol received the National Military Spouse Impact Award for her significant contributions in the area of military spouse employment. iRelaunch was a finalist for the 2017 MassTLC Building a Better Workforce Award. 

iRelaunch produces the iRelaunch Return to Work Conferences and works with over 250 clients on career reentry programs and programming. iRelaunch co-leads the STEM Re-entry Task Force with the Society of Women Engineers, which has 44 employer members, representing industry leaders across sectors including technology, defense, aerospace, pharma, automobiles, industrial equipment, oil and gas, and more. Over 1,300 relaunchers have participated in Task Force company return to work programs to date, and over 85% have been hired. iRelaunch is the subject of a Stanford Graduate School of Business case study.

Cohen is a relauncher herself, having returned to work at Bain Capital after an 11 year career break before co-founding iRelaunch. Her relaunch is documented in an HBS case study. A graduate of Pomona College and Harvard Business School, she lives in South Florida.  LinkedIn