Career Reinvention: How One Producer Pivoted Across Industries

Career Reinvention

Thinking about changing careers? We talk with Cynthia Cohen about how she pivoted without starting over by building on existing skills instead of erasing the past. From New York to today’s remote work landscape, we break down what it really takes to switch careers, stay competitive in a shifting job market, manage fear, and turn your experience into new opportunities.

Cynthia's Website: https://rightarmproductions.com/

"How Much Can I Make?" Is nominated for 2026 Women in Podcasting Award!

Music credit: Kate Pierson & Monica Nation

Visit howmuchcanimake.info

Transcript

Careers Need Pivots Now

SPEAKER_00 0:02

I believe that positivity and optimism are contagious, and we live in a very cynical, pessimistic, and fearful world. So if you have the innate kind of energy that is optimistic and positive, people are really attracted to it.

Advertising Roots And Art Buying

Mirav Ozeri - Host 0:19

Hi, welcome back to How Much Can I Make? The podcast all about jobs and careers. Let's be real. The days of one career path are pretty much over. From the pandemic to the way tech and the world are moving, knowing how to pivot is the new superpower. Today I'm joined by a serial career pivoter, Cynthia Coyne. She breaks down the mindset behind the switch so you're not just starting from scratch, but rather leveling up. Here is Cynthia. Okay, Cynthia. So thank you so much for agreeing to do that. We're gonna talk about changing career and pivoting, but before that, tell me a little bit about your career trajectory.

SPEAKER_00 1:01

Okay, thank you for inviting me to talk to you today. My career started in advertising. I did not go to school for advertising, but I was in love with advertising from an early age. I always thought it was like fun.

Mirav Ozeri - Host 1:14

What did you do in advertising?

SPEAKER_00 1:15

I was an art buyer. An art buyer is someone who hires photographers, illustrators, models, does contracts, but also interprets briefs into visual direction for outside executors. I got in, I really wanted to be a copywriter. But once I started working with photographers on the daily, I was like, I love this. I love photography and I love visuals. I also love artists of all kinds. And I worked for two agencies before I started my own company productions. I was facing a demotion at the advertising agency that I worked at. And instead of staying at a company where I felt like I wasn't doing what I really wanted to, I just decided to start my own company instead.

Mirav Ozeri - Host 1:59

So you're entrepreneur at heart. Yes. So you started the right arm production.

Pandemic Pivot To Virtual Dinners

SPEAKER_00 2:04

Correct. Out of a closet. Out of friends, a great, wonderful guy, Greg Denodo, previous boss of mine, and I told him I wanted to start this company. And he said, I've got space in my closet if you want to work out of it. I said, I do. So that's what happened. And so I started working almost immediately, producing photo shoots for advertising campaigns. Photography was the medium. And one job just led to the next. The next, I really wanted to travel. I wanted to shoot around the world. I'm I've always had a travel bug, and I wanted to carve my own niche of doing travel photography for advertising purposes. And once I set my mind to it, that's exactly what happened. I've traveled the whole world shooting. Yeah. But I had the company and I've had the company for 20 plus years now. And the company has shifted and changed with the shifts and change in the industry. So whereas it started primarily with print, over the years it has become whatever the client needs. And that could be video, that could be broadcast, that could recently I did an event. Whatever production was required is what I would bend and provide.

Mirav Ozeri - Host 3:21

Before we get into the changes that the marketplace demands now, and there are a lot, I just want to mention that during the pandemic, you started a whole new thing, right?

SPEAKER_00 3:33

I always thought I had a different business or different company in me, and I wasn't really sure what it was. I had little stabs at a travel company, I had little stabs at a catering company, but nothing really had traction for me enough to stop doing production. But when the pandemic happened, it stopped it for me. In the earliest stages, I really thought there was like a way to bring different communities together with people who could not physically be together. There were still graduations and birthdays and events that were happening and people missing each other. So I reached out to a friend of mine and came up with this idea, Project Bon Vivant, which was a dinner party company that we would invite groups of people to attend on Zoom on the same night, all eating the same food with the same theme. And originally the theme was always travel. So our very first one was travel to Maine. And I contacted a fisherman in Maine who flew everyone lobsters and oysters. And then he came on and he talked about how he pulled the oysters out of the fishing boat the day before. And then we would have the kids get involved and they would have drawings of sailboats. And then we had musicians who would come in, and we would have a sommelier who would talk about the wine. And so it was a very interactive, super fun and engaging evening for an entire group of people who were all spread out all over the country.

Mirav Ozeri - Host 5:07

And then he died after the pandemic.

Problem Solving As A Superpower

SPEAKER_00 5:09

Yes, but before the pandemic ended, it started taking on a different life of its own. We started doing corporate events. We did one event for a Philip Morris group that was included people in four different continents. And we were hand delivering bottles of kava in Uruguay, Argentina, Chile. So what that experience taught me was that production is the base for anything. And no matter what the circumstance or situation is, there is a way forward.

Mirav Ozeri - Host 5:42

You have to combine all of this artistic and business endeavor into one skill.

SPEAKER_00 5:47

It's very right brain, left brain. It really is. I like to solve problems. Doing these spreadsheets to me was like problem solving. I really get a total charge out of it when I do an estimate and I do my actual and they are accurate. I love that.

Mirav Ozeri - Host 6:13

That is really applicable to a lot of professions. Exactly. You moved from the agency that you worked with to photography. So it's you stayed within the field and the changes were forced on you because the agency you had to leave. Right. But the other changes, how did you make them? Because you got bored? Because you wanted something new? What was the motivation behind the change?

SPEAKER_00 6:37

Yes. That's a good question. I think that it is an insatiable need to continue exploring. I have a lot of interests and I really love solving problems. I love solving problems for myself. I love solving problems for other people. And I love the combination of problem solving with something that has some flair around it, some style around it, some exploration around it. And it doesn't matter what the what the vocation is if you bring that sort of energy to it. So for example, we're sitting in my house right now. Being in production helped me build the house that we're sitting in right now. Understanding the flow of budgets and estimates and crew and timing and scheduling. It was the same thing that I'd been doing in a career, but just in a house. So now when I'm thinking about the future and the next career or the next building block of this career, I can imagine a job in construction project management.

Proving Yourself To Clients

Mirav Ozeri - Host 7:49

Do you ever think about the perception of your clients?

SPEAKER_00 7:52

What do they think about you, or you just don't want to bother about it? I have one client that I've worked with for many years, and when we went from stills to video and broadcast, I could feel that she was trepidatious that I didn't really have the understanding to make the jump from one to the other. So I had to prove myself. Prove that I did. And I knew that I could because I knew that they were the same animal. They just had different terms. And I am sure I have lost jobs along the way with clients who didn't want to take a chance on me putting myself in a new arena. And that's fine. Because you build a whole new site of clients. Yeah, whatever. Like I can't, the same way I can't control the environment and the political climate and AI, I can't control who hires me or doesn't or why. These clients, they have a very hard job these days. And as do all these photographers, just listening to your conversation with Phil, there is not like a through line for any career now.

Mirav Ozeri - Host 8:54

Nothing.

SPEAKER_00 8:55

And the fact that there's no real job security that exists is either terrifying or motivational.

Mirav Ozeri - Host 9:04

So before you change the direction of your career, do you think about the risk of what it will take? Or doesn't you are just like your gut feeling and that's it?

Build A Ladder Not A Reset

SPEAKER_00 9:13

Yeah. Yeah. Because I don't spend a whole lot of time with risk. It's like everything has risk. Walking outside has risks. I would rather think about the benefits. And there's always a benefit to it. Even things that don't go well. If something doesn't really fly, how long do you give it? I think pretty quickly. Either it just does there's just no interest in it, or I lose interest in it. And the ones that have been the most successful have been the ones that I've been most passionate about and able to use my passion as a propeller to acquire jobs andor new clientele.

Mirav Ozeri - Host 9:50

You have to transfer your skill from one profession to the other in order to succeed in changing your career.

SPEAKER_00 9:56

Yeah, see, that's I don't think you do. I think you build. I think you look at your career like your and your life like a big ladder, and you take your original talent and expertise and you just develop it and grow it and expand on it and then shift as necessary. And if you are truly passionate and good at what you do and love it, you'll find something interesting in there. And I think you see that with consistency in fields and through people who love to work. You have to love to work, which is something that I think you you have tapped into with this podcast. I mean, people that you speak to love what they do. Totally. And they and what's a super old hackneyed adage, but if you love what you do, you'll you don't work. You don't work. And that is a big part of what it is to be an entrepreneur and to certainly be a serial entrepreneur. I I'm married to a man who never wants to retire until he's 80 something. Like I would rather keep working myself and then change the type of work that I do, have adaptability, and do something as I get older and want to slow down if I want to slow down.

Mirav Ozeri - Host 11:12

So you mentioned before, are you thinking of doing construction?

SPEAKER_00 11:15

Yeah. It's a hybrid of construction. I love construction. I love it.

Mirav Ozeri - Host 11:19

General contractor, what it is.

SPEAKER_00 11:22

So general contractor and a line producer is the same job. Yes. And it's just a different application of it. So I think there is something in my line producer history and expertise that is applicable to construction.

Mirav Ozeri - Host 11:39

How will you be able to explain this to new customers that want to build a house?

SPEAKER_00 11:43

I think I would explain it to the builders how I can fit in with them. I think I could explain it to the architects how I can fit in with them. I think I can sell it to the designers how I fit in with them. Years of being front-facing with clients has given me an ability to speak to anyone up and down the chain.

Mirav Ozeri - Host 12:05

Cool. And you can show them a sample house. Exactly. You build your own house. Do you regret any of your pivots?

SPEAKER_00 12:11

No.

Mirav Ozeri - Host 12:12

So when the thing that you did with the drinks and the dinners during the pandemic, it was just it just fit for the time of the pandemic.

The Prep Work Behind Pivots

SPEAKER_00 12:20

So it started to merge into event coordination. It was something for Bon Vivant that worked so beautifully during the pandemic, but I I'm not a caterer really. And I'm not a party planner. And I that's I would rather leave that to the people who love it. So it was time to just close the door on it.

Mirav Ozeri - Host 12:40

Is there a lot of planning before pivoting and changing your career? Or you just jump in and whatever happens?

SPEAKER_00 12:48

No, there is a lot. Like life, everything is in the prep, right? It's all the prep.

Mirav Ozeri - Host 12:54

When you change from photography to commercials, what was the process of preparing for that?

SPEAKER_00 13:00

I started looking at bids from broadcast producers where I could get my hands on them. I asked friends to give me samples and examples so I could see what the terminology was, how what the difference was in pricing from stills to broadcast, what the union rules were. I started digging around on digging around online to find out what the changes would be, what the hours that you would have to be from one discipline to another discipline. And then I just started getting on the phone and asking people questions about how to make that a smooth transition.

Mirav Ozeri - Host 13:35

So was there any change that you were considering and you looked into it and then said, that's not for me, and he left it alone?

AI Anxiety And Human Judgment

SPEAKER_00 13:42

It's like the travel thing. So many people have said to me over the years, why don't you do this for a living? You know exactly where to go, you like you know exactly when you get there, what to do. You have your maps, you have your contacts for captains of boats and drivers, and you have to have a very specific timeline of how to get up that hill to get that. You got the whole mentor. Exactly. The more I learned about the travel industry, the more I realized where the money comes from. And you have to steer people to specific places in order to get the money. So you have to steer them to a particular type of hotel or hotel group or a particular outfitter and be reliant on what those provide. That is not the way I wanted to recommend travel. So that was that was a non-starter for me. Your skill or producing. Do you think AI will kill producers' job? There is a lot of panic in the industry about AI, in advertising and marketing and PR and all the related for sure. As a producer, I think it can be useful as a tool, but I don't see it as threatening as a day-to-day thing. AI can come up with an estimate in 10 seconds, but they don't understand all the nuances that are within an estimate. That is one thing that humans have over machines, especially someone who has years and years of expertise in particular places. You know that you're going to come over in a particular place. You know that the there's going to be waiting time for the cars. You know that there's going to be a travel aspect. But AI could never anticipate that. And being a pre a producer, being a good producer is all about anticipation and problem solving before it's the problem. But the larger threat is what happens if photo shoots are proved unnecessary, deemed unnecessary because of what AI can generate. That is the panic that is setting forth.

Mirav Ozeri - Host 15:40

And does this make you think about a new direction to build on your career?

The Challange of Pivoting

SPEAKER_00 15:44

It doesn't. I don't want to spend a ton of time worrying about this incoming fearfulness that AI has brought in the industry. But I'm also not an idiot and naive enough to think that it will never affect me. And if I have learned anything through my timeline of working in this industry, is there's never a downside to dreaming of something new.

Mirav Ozeri - Host 16:10

What would you say is the biggest challenge in changing your career, even though you're building on the skills you already have?

SPEAKER_00 16:17

There is an emotional challenge to it. Even though I'm strong and strident and passionate and believe in myself and have confidence, there are moments of doubt of can something really ignite. Exactly. And the same as any freelancer goes through gaps in time where you're just not working at all, you have to have a very kind of strong constitution to get through those periods of time because we are relying on a client base that has nothing to do with us. You never really know where the clients are going to come from. And you have to be out in the world. I do believe that if I can get a meeting with somebody, I can get a job. And I don't even know what that job's gonna be. But I do believe that. Like I believe that people I believe that positivity and optimism are contagious, and we live in a very cynical, pessimistic, and fearful world. So if you have the innate kind of energy that is optimistic and positive, which is hard right now, people are really attracted to it and they want to be around it. And I've seen some amazing sales pitches that were based purely on the promise of something fun and interesting and less about the nuts and bolts of it. And people like that.

Mirav Ozeri - Host 17:40

So basically, to change your career, you have to have the idea and the passion, you have to take time for research, you have to adapt your skills to the new thing, and voila.

SPEAKER_00 17:50

Yeah, keep your eyes and your ears open, look for the opportunities. And every downturn, someone is getting an upturn. I remembered in 2018, that horrible year 2018. Was that 2008? Excuse me, in 2008, when there was that huge economic downturn, everybody was panicking. I got a job with Walmart, and that job with Walmart was to shoot for them? To shoot for them, to do uh it was a campaign, it was a small campaign for one of their the one of their apparel groups, and that job turned into four-year constant. It was unbelievable. I that was I made more money during that horrible economy with that one client that happened to be making all the money, and it was a complete fluke. It came from a weird somebody's husband knew someone who was working at the at a PR company who then left before I even came on the job. It was just I hear it a lot. It's luck. Luck is the most important thing. Yeah, it there is a there's certainly an element of luck, but also manifestation is very important, and being in the right place at the right time, and maybe that is luck.

Final Takeaways And Goodbye

Mirav Ozeri - Host 19:05

All right, then on that point, thank you so much. It's fun talking to you. Yeah. That's a wrap. Big thanks to Cynthia for breaking down how to turn your past into your future. Thanks for tuning in and don't forget to follow and share. I'll see you next week on How Much Can I Make.