Robin Merle, CFRE has been a senior executive for billion-dollar organizations and a veteran of the power, value, and identity wars at the top ranks. Most recently, she served as the Vice President and Executive Director of the John Jay College Foundation at the City University of New York, and is currently the principal of Robin Merle Associates, LLC. Robin has raised more than a half-billion dollars in philanthropy during her nearly forty years working with nonprofit organizations and academic and health care institutions. These include New York University, Hospital for Special Surgery affiliated with Weill Cornell Medicine, and the Rutgers University Foundation. She has served as a board member for three nonprofits in New York City, including the Association of Fundraising Professionals, New York City Chapter; the New York Women’s Agenda; and Women In Development, New York (WID). She also has been a three-time vice chair of National Philanthropy Day in New York. In 2017, she was named Woman of Achievement by WID for her leadership in fundraising and commitment to supporting women in the field. Robin is proud to be a graduate of the first class of women at Rutgers College. She graduated Phi Beta Kappa and went on to earn a Master of Arts from The Johns Hopkins University and publish short fiction in various literary magazines. Robin is the author of Involuntary Exit: A Woman’s Guide to Thriving After Being Fired (She Writes Press, 2021), which received the Gold Award from the Nonfiction Authors Association and a 5-star review from Foreword Clarion Reviews. She is the founder of The Professional Guide, a witty, honest resource to help women take action on professional experiences that aren’t up to their standards.

This presentation will trace the beginning and end of the arc of emotional trauma when women in high-ranking positions get dismissed from their organizations for no cause. Robin will share stories from her book and present the tactics the women used to work through the trauma, recover, and discover their own personal power.

This would be a 30-45 minute speech with PPTs highlighting statistics about women in the workplace, passages from the real-life stories of women professionals who drove their own success after being let go, and humor to illustrate corporate culture.

For the last 15-30 minutes, the audience would be encouraged to share their stories and engage in Q & A. Robin would invite the audience to follow @theprofessionalguide, her social platform for women with similar experiences seeking community and approaches to the issues with a mixture of emotional support, humor, and practical advice.

This 50-minute presentation will focus on the tone-deaf behavior of bosses who fire women, mixing a lot of humor with Best Advice sound-bites to leave the audience with high energy and empathy for one another. A portion of the presentation called Really!!!??? will invite women to come to the stage or take the microphone to tell their own tales of absurd behavior. The cumulative effect should be uplifting, cynically optimistic, and bonding.

Robin would invite the audience to follow @theprofessionalguide, her social platform for women with similar experiences seeking community and approaches to the issues with a mixture of emotional support, humor, and functional logic.

This 50-minute presentation will open with examples/stories of being faux-fired and ask the audience to contribute their own stories to answer the question: Is this what’s happening to me? The presentation will include a Top-Ten list of signs that you’re being faux-fired and what people can do about it.

Robin would invite the audience to follow @theprofessionalguide, her social platform for women with similar experiences seeking community and approaches to the issues with a mixture of emotional support, humor, and functional logic.