She Waited for Someone to Offer Her a Promotion. Nobody Did. Ceridian SVP Geetanjali on Owning Your Career

A Recruiter She Never Asked for Advice from Told Her to Lower Her Ambitions. It Derailed Her for Months. What Geetanjali Learned About Who Gets to Define Your Ceiling.

She was doing great work, getting strong reviews, and waiting for someone to recognize she was ready for the next level. Nobody came. Finally, she went and asked. They said: "Yeah, we think you're ready." She walked away with one permanent lesson: no one knows where you want to go unless you tell them. Your manager cannot promote you toward a goal they don't know you have.

Geetanjali is SVP of Financial Planning and Analysis at Ceridian, and she has built her career across multiple industries, companies, and cities, often following her spouse's career moves and rebuilding her network from scratch each time. She has been told she had no career path because of a commute. She has had a recruiter give her unsolicited opinions about her ceiling — someone who had never worked with her and didn't even have a position for her. Both times, she fact-checked herself, pushed back, and moved forward.

In this episode, she gets specific about how.

You'll learn:

• Why she walked out of her first promotion conversation wondering why her manager didn't just offer it, and the mantra she built from that moment: "I own my career."
• How she separates "I can't do this" from "I don't want to do this" — a distinction her husband called her out on, and one that completely changes how you diagnose self-doubt.
• The worst-case scenario mindset she uses every time asking feels too risky: maximum they say no, and then at least you know exactly what you need to work on.
• The recruiter who told her to stay put and aim lower, without her asking for any of that advice, and how she spiraled — until she realized: this person has never worked with me, doesn't know what I do, and has no position for me. Why am I listening?
• The manager who told her she had no career because she was commuting. How she found a better position, and what she said in her exit interview when the CFO asked why she was leaving.
• How she negotiated leaving at 5 PM sharp with a male manager who was more supportive than she expected — and why building trust first is the prerequisite for every other ask.
• Her salary negotiation rule, applied to every job offer she has ever received: never accept in one go, always go back at least once, and negotiate the full package not just the base number.
• How she leads her team by modeling openness about her own mistakes first, which makes it safe for her team to take risks and tell her when she is wrong.
• Her networking approach: stay in touch with mentors even after years of silence, get involved in community organizations when you move cities, and commit to one lunch a month with someone new.

About Geetanjali: SVP of Financial Planning and Analysis at Ceridian, Geetanjali has built a finance leadership career across multiple industries and cities. She is a dual-career couple partner, working mom, woman of color from India, and active member of the Association of Financial Professionals.