Tra’verse (v.) To travel, or pass across, over, or through
Traversing one’s career in today’s climate of constant change can be a challenge to navigate. That’s where we come in.
We are career navigation experts, coaching individuals from new graduates to seasoned executives on how to take ownership of their career success and achieve greater professional and personal fulfillment.
We also partner with employers, delivering dynamic career empowerment workshops and executive coaching to drive career accountability, foster self-sufficiency, and elevate leadership across the organization.
Our distinctive solutions for HR Leaders combine personalized guidance with the power of cohort learning—positioning HR as a catalyst for transformational change while nurturing well-being and sustainable growth from within.
Ellen Barker Dunagan is the Founder and President of Traverse Career Solutions, LLC. She is a recognized expert in career management as well as a sought-after coach and facilitator. An entrepreneur at heart, Ellen launched her company to fulfill her passion for helping people discover and enjoy greater career happiness—something she has relentlessly pursued herself.
Ellen began her career onboarding new lawyers at a large Washington, DC, law firm. There she excelled at guiding associates through challenges on the road to partnership, motivating them to take charge of their career success by marketing their accomplishments, building powerful internal and external networks, and becoming more visible.
From there, Ellen enjoyed a series of Human Resources leadership roles within a variety of industries including technology firms and government contractors. During her tenure in HR, she coached employees on how to map their careers more successfully and guided executives on adopting a coaching-based approach to developing employees.
Ellen’s innovative solutions to recruiting and retaining talent, combined with her coaching-approach to employee engagement and workplace change, were recognized by organizational leaders as she brought transformational change to the HR function. This collective experience gave her a deep appreciation for the dual nature of HR—representing a business’s interests while also advocating for its employees—and she considers her HR expertise a linchpin to her own success as a career strategist and executive coach.
Ellen’s unwavering philosophy as a coach is that everyone has a unique set of skills and experiences. She believes that identifying and claiming what makes us unique has an added benefit: becoming more confident in bringing our authentic selves to work – and enjoying greater professional fulfillment She has helped hundreds of people transform their careers by using personal branding as a strategic and intentional tool that significantly contributes to career success.
Ellen has an M.S. in Counseling and Psychological Services with a concentration in Industrial/Organizational Psychology and is a Certified Co-Active Coach. She pursued her M.S. after wandering from job to job with no clear path, just like many new college graduates today. The years she spent “temping” within a variety of organizations across a wide range of industries gave Ellen a glimpse of what she was meant to do: contribute to transformational organizational change by helping employees map and drive career success—and helping organizations successfully retain their hard-won talent.
Ellen has been an avid contributor to the success of Mentor HR, an award-winning mentoring program for NOVA SHRM and Dulles SHRM HR professionals for almost 20 years, and was the program’s first ever career coach. A busy mom with three children, Ellen loves her work and her life, pursuing both to the fullest—although imperfectly at times (a modern-day challenge she shares with many clients!)
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