Digging Deep: On Discovering Your Identity (Guest Sidoney Samuels-Buckridge)

Digging Deep: On Discovering Your Identity (Guest Sidoney Samuels-Buckridge)

On Episode 7 of Season 3… Sidoney Samuels-Buckridge, Head of U.S. R&D Employee Engagement at AstraZeneca and newly minted author joins Melissa to share her story.  

Deeply passionate about people, Sidoney loves to mentor young professional women, especially women of color. Listen in as Sidoney and Melissa get deep on topics around truly discovering your identity, moving through life with purpose, and using your story to impact others. A Brand Leadership Institute Alumna, Sidoney also about shares on how she was led to publish her new book,  Pain to Purpose: My Journey to Redemption, in January of 2021.

sidoney samuels-buckridge
  • 3:12: Sidoney’s background, and how she first met Melissa. 
  • 7:30: How Sidoney was able to juggle her family, job, and writing a book in the midst of 2020.
  • 10:10: How the BLI Experience helped to shape her leadership style. 
  • 13:45: One of Sidoney’s most defining moments in her life.
  • 17:30: Advice for women who may be in a place of transition.
  • 21:25: How Sidoney got comfortable being transparent with sharing her personal story and identity. 
  • 23:27: A big life challenge that Sidoney was faced with (and how she handles it now).
  • 28:30: Sidoney’s secret sauce.

More about Sidoney Samuels-Buckridge

Sidoney is Head of U.S. R&D Employee Engagement at AstraZeneca. She works with executive leadership to develop and execute effective engagement strategies and drive diversity and inclusion priorities.  She is a senior engagement and communications advisor to C-suite leaders in the life sciences, consulting and media industries and an award-winning professional with more than 20 years’ experience. 

Sidoney loves to write and has written several published articles. She published her first novel Pain to Purpose: My Journey to Redemption in January 2021.

She holds a Diversity and Inclusion for HR Certificate from Cornell University, and a Certificate in Leadership Development from the University of Maryland. Sidoney also holds a Master’s degree in Journalism from the University of South Carolina, and a Bachelor’s degree in Communications from Elizabethtown College. You can learn more about Sidoney Samuels-Buckridge on her website

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Melissa Dawn Simkins Coined “The First Lady of Personal Branding”, Melissa is the CEO of Velvet Suite, a trusted advisor to Fortune 100s, C-Suite executives and influencers, highly-sought after keynote speaker on leadership innovation, a contributor to Inc.com and a frequent guest on news and business media, including CNN, HLN, MSNBC, Essence, Black Enterprise and more.

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