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Mar 23, 2026 26 min

50 & Fired!

from Two Coffees In Hosted by Ashok Venkatraj & Luciana Madeira

“50 & Fired” goes inside what it’s really like to be restructured out of a senior role at 50—and what you do the week after the call. Ashok and Lu talk with executive leader Shay Tower about losing identity, status, and structure overnight, the black hole of LinkedIn, and the “cobwebs” metaphor from her coach that helped her move through fear instead of freezing.​ Shay Tower is a seasoned program management leader who currently runs the IT Project Management Office at Austin Community College and previously led major global digital portfolios at General Motors, where she and Ashok first worked together. She brings deep experience turning strategy into execution, building high-performing teams, and guiding organizations through digital and cultural transformation.​ Now she’s using all of that to design a second act built on purpose, impact, and autonomy after a late-career layoff—showing that while a company can end your job, they don’t get to decide what you do next.

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50 & Fired!

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