Episode 89. How Neuroscience Can Help Your Job Search, Decision Making & Manage High Pressure Situations – Gunes Italiaander

Looking for insights on how neuroscience can help your job search, improve your decision making and manage high stake situations at work? I had the pleasure of discussing this and so much more with Gunes Italiaander on Episode 89 of the Reframe & Reset Your Career podcast.

In this episode, we will learn about:

What the film The Truman Show can teach us about career and personal development,

Why she moved on from studying for a neuroscience PhD at Oxford to the corporate world,

How she achieved success in her career but eventually had to face up to and manage burnout,

Self care and the benefits of taking time for yourself,

The importance of controlling what you can control,

Strategies to help deal with high pressure situations at work like interviews or presentations,

Bouncing back from adversity,

Understanding what success and professional happiness means to you,

Improving your decision making and understanding the role that emotions play and

How to manage the challenges when moving from middle to senior management.

Gunes is a purpose-driven leader and coach with a rich and varied career that spans neuroscience, data science, product management, and business strategy. Her journey reflects a deep passion for understanding how people think, work, and lead—and creating systems and solutions that drive meaningful change.

Her 15+ year professional story began in neuroscience, where she explored emotional decision-making, behavioral economics, and game theory, earning her a unique perspective on human behavior under pressure. From there, she transitioned into data science at Vodafone, where she solved complex marketing and business challenges through predictive models with a customer experience lens.

Eager to bridge technology and human interaction, Gunes shifted into product and design, working at Philips and IDEO to craft innovative, human-centric solutions. She then combined her technical and creative expertise at BCG X (digital ventures), where she played a key leadership role in building and scaling startups for Fortune 100 companies for many years.

Currently, Gunes serves as VP of Product and Engineering at Worksome, a scale-up that empowers enterprises to work seamlessly with independent contractors. She leads cross-functional teams across product, engineering, and design, driving strategy and execution to scale a platform that is used across the globe by some of the biggest enterprise companies.

 

People & Resources Mentioned

Daniel Kahneman

Antoni Damasio

 

Contact Gunes

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gunesitaliaander/

Email: gunes.italiaander@gmail.com  

 

Reframe & Reset Your Career Resources & Contact Info

Website: https://www.harshaboralessa.com/ 

YouTube Channel:  https://www.youtube.com/c/ReframeResetYourCareer 

LinkedIn Page: https://www.linkedin.com/company/reframe-reset-your-career/?viewAsMember=true

E-mail - reframeandresetyourcareer@harshaboralessa.com

Thank you for your continued support of Reframe & Reset Your Career, I do appreciate it. I now have a new website, see link above, please do check it out, I hope you find it helpful. 

It would be great to hear from you, the listeners, and your thoughts about the podcast, YouTube channel or anything else, it's always a pleasure to hear your views. I have had some great reviews but not had any way of responding. The next episode will be available on Weds 12th February. 

 

*Reframe & Reset Your Career, including any comments made by the host and guests, is for informational purposes only and does not constitute advice of any description, including but not restricted to financial, legal, investing or medical advice.*