Reading: #114: From Fashion Showroom Manager To College COO (Linda Mauro)

Linda Mauro went from FIT (Fashion Institute of Technology) to showroom sales, fashion forecasting, a buying office, and eventually running a New York showroom for west coast designers. “I was Carrie Bradshaw [of Sex in the City],” she says about the crazy, fashion-infused hard-charging lifestyle. “I paid my dues.” When she got fired, she regrouped her life outside of the city and applied to Berkeley College which had an opening in admissions and recruiting. “They listed the same skills that I was using in the showroom: sales, managing a budget, goals,” she says. “I was able to bring those skills into higher education.” Today, Mauro is the COO of Berkeley College of New Jersey and she’s been there 20 years. She says: “Lots of the students are career changers like me.”