Latest / The Internal Move Podcast with Fexingo: Lateral Roles, Internal Transfers, and Staying at Your Company / How an Internal Transfer Can Help You Build a New Professional Identity
Transcript
- Lucas: So Sarah Chen had spent six years in brand management at a major consumer goods company. She was known as the person who could execute a flawless product launch — detailed timelines, agency management, cross-functional coordination. But she wanted to be seen as a strategist, not just an executor. And the only way to make that shift, she figured, was to leave the brand team entirely and transfer to corporate strategy. Luna: That's a big bet. She's giving up all the institutional credibility she built in brand to start over in a new function where nobody knows her track record. Lucas: Exactly. And that's the tension at the heart of this episode. An internal transfer can be a powerful tool for reinventing your professional identity — but it also means walking away from a reputation you've spent years building. So how do you do it intentionally, rather than just hoping the new role will change how people see you? Luna: Let's start with Sarah. What was her first step? Lucas: She spent about four months before the transfer doing what I'd call 'pre-rebranding.' She volunteered for two cross-functional strategy projects — one on market entry for a new category, another on optimizing the promotional spend across regions. Both projects were outside her brand management remit and gave her exposure to the corporate strategy team's VP. Luna: So she was building evidence of strategic thinking before she even applied for the role. That's smart — it gives the hiring manager a reason to see her differently. Lucas: Right. And it also meant she had internal advocates who could vouch for her strategic chops when her resume came across the desk. The VP of strategy told her later that those project contributions were the main reason he greenlit the transfer. She wasn't an unknown quantity — she was a known quantity in a new light. Luna: That's the visibility shift. What about the competency reframing? How did she actually change what she did day-to-day? Lucas: She made a deliberate choice to drop the execution tasks that had defined her. Even though she could have helped the team with launch planning — it was her comfort zone — she said no. She focused purely on analysis, frameworks, and presentations. She told her new manager upfront: 'I want to be known for strategic thinking, not project management. Please give me the work that builds that muscle.' Luna: That takes guts. Most people in a new role want to prove their usefulness by doing whatever's needed. She's essentially saying, 'I'm going to be less useful in the short term so I can be more valuable in the long term.' Lucas: And it worked. After her first six months, the CEO's chief of staff asked her to present on a competitive analysis she'd done. That presentation led to a spot on a quarterly strategy review. Suddenly, she wasn't the brand person anymore — she was the person who could synthesize market data and make a recommendation. Luna: So her network re-anchored around the new identity. People in strategy started seeing her as one of them. But what about the old network? The brand team colleagues who still thought of her as the launch guru? Lucas: That's the hard part. Sarah told me she had to actively manage those old relationships. She stopped attending brand team social events. She unfollowed some brand-specific Slack channels. It sounds harsh, but she said it was necessary to signal — to herself as much as to others — that she'd moved on. She needed to break the association. Luna: There's something almost anthropological about it. You're changing tribes, and you have to adopt the new tribe's language, rituals, and symbols. Sarah's new tribe used frameworks like Porter's Five Forces and BCG matrix. The brand tribe used campaign briefs and line extensions. If she kept straddling both, she'd never fully belong to either. Lucas: That's a great way to frame it. And it leads to a practical question: how do you map your current identity against the one you want? I think there are three dimensions: the skills you're known for, the problems you're asked to solve, and the people you're seen with. Sarah consciously shifted all three. Luna: Let's break that down. Skills — she swapped execution for analysis. Problems — instead of 'how do we launch this product on time?' she was asked 'should we enter this market?' People — she built relationships with strategists instead of brand managers. It's a complete identity overhaul. Lucas: And the transfer was the vehicle. But the transfer alone wasn't enough. She had to actively manage the narrative. One tactic she used: she asked for a title change. Her official title went from 'Senior Brand Manager' to 'Senior Strategy Associate.' That might sound cosmetic, but when she introduced herself at meetings, the title did half the work of telling people how to see her. Luna: That's a great point. Titles signal identity internally. If she'd kept 'Brand Manager' in a strategy role, people would have been confused. The title change made the reinvention official. Lucas: There's also the emotional dimension. Sarah told me she felt intense imposter syndrome for the first three months. She'd sit in strategy meetings and think, 'Everyone here has a consulting background or an MBA from a top school. I'm the brand person who learned Porter's Five Forces from a LinkedIn course.' Luna: How did she push through that? Lucas: She used what she called 'identity anchors.' Every morning, she'd write down one piece of strategic work she'd done the previous day — a framework she applied, a recommendation she made, a data point she unearthed. Over time, those small wins accumulated into a new self-story. She started to believe she belonged. Luna: So the internal transfer isn't just a logistics move — it's a psychological one. You're essentially authoring a new chapter of your career, and you have to live into that story before it feels true. Lucas: Exactly. And I think that's what separates people who use a transfer to reinvent themselves from those who just change jobs inside the same building. The ones who succeed treat it as a deliberate identity project. They map the gap, they build evidence, they manage their network, and they craft a narrative. Luna: If someone is listening and thinking, 'I want to do what Sarah did,' what's the first concrete step they should take this week? Lucas: Identify the one skill you're most known for that you want to stop being known for. Write it down. Then write down the skill you want to be known for instead. Then look for one project — even a small one — that lets you demonstrate the new skill. Volunteer for it. Use it as your proof of concept. Luna: And don't wait for the transfer to start. Start building the new identity right now, in your current role. Lucas: Speaking of building things — if this episode helped you think about your own career identity, and you'd like to support the show, you can do that at buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. It's the simplest way to keep this podcast ad-free and independent. Luna: Yeah, and honestly, if today's conversation was worth a coffee to you, that's the link. No pressure, just appreciation. Lucas: Alright, back to Sarah. One last thing she did that I think is really smart: after six months in the new role, she scheduled skip-level meetings with three senior leaders in strategy. She didn't ask for anything. She just gave them a one-page update on her work and said, 'I want to make sure my contributions are visible.' She was proactively managing her reputation. Luna: That's the network re-anchoring in action. She's not waiting for people to notice her — she's making sure they see the new version of her. Lucas: And that's the takeaway. An internal transfer can be a powerful tool for professional reinvention, but only if you treat it as an identity project, not just a job change. Map the gap, build the evidence, manage the narrative, and re-anchor your network. Sarah did all four, and it worked. Luna: I think the question for all of us is: what identity are we currently projecting at work, and is it the one we want? Lucas: That's the question. And if you're not sure, maybe this is the week to start figuring it out.