Fast Track Your Career with a Mentor - In conversation with Helen Doukas, Nuvo Work

·37 min·2 clips

A mentor helped Helen realize, “maybe I can,” and that became the spark for Nuvo Work.

1. Your Career Podcast with Jane Jackson discusses fast-tracking careers through mentorship and Nuvo Work. 2. Jane Jackson hosts Helen Dukas, the founder of Nuvo Work, and Helen matters because she has moved from general counsel roles into a tech startup. 3. The episode asks how people can keep up with career change when career education is not changing fast enough. 4. Helen says her early interests were speaking, presenting, talking to people, English, and writing. 5. She explains that law felt like a clear path at 17, while media felt more natural but less clearly mapped. 6. Helen says private practice law was a mismatch of her interests and abilities, not a problem with the firm itself. 7. She moved in-house because it was more strategic, less siloed, and closer to the business. 8. A secondee role with a large global client led her toward Yahoo and a legal career she enjoyed more. 9. Helen describes senior legal roles at Yahoo New Zealand, Yahoo 7, and Uber as high-stakes and fast paced. 10. She says moving to New Zealand Airways was a personal decision shaped by living in New Zealand and by a partner at the time. 11. She says the Airways role gave her a head title, team leadership, and regulatory work during COVID. 12. Helen notes that the Airways team won New Zealand in-house team of the year for that pandemic period. 13. She explains that she used LawView at Airways before later joining LawView as general counsel. 14. Helen says Nuvo Work began after a mentor conversation, just after her second baby and while raising a toddler. 15. She says the mentor held up a mirror to her motivations and helped her see an entrepreneurial spark. 16. Helen says she had long cared about people doing work they love, partly because her mother gave up her own career when Helen was young. 17. She says generative AI and tools like ChatGPT are making professional skill sets change faster across law and other industries. 18. Helen describes Nuvo Work as a platform for booking vetted experts for one-on-one micro-learning on demand. 19. The interview style is conversational and reflective, with Jane pressing on each career transition and Helen answering in detail. 20. People interested in career transitions, mentorship, or the future of work will get the most from this episode, while listeners wanting only broad inspiration may skip it.

As heard by us

A steady reminder that career change gets easier when advice stays personal.

The episode focuses on how quickly work shifts while career guidance often lags behind. Jane Jackson speaks with Helen Dukas, who moved from general counsel work into founding Nuvo Work after roles at Uber and Yahoo, and that shift is used to show adaptability in a concrete way.

Read the full review in PlayNext →

Why you'd press play

When your career feels outdated before you are.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

Listen to the show on

Apple Podcasts Spotify

Play clips from this episode More from Your Career Podcast with Jane Jackson