About us
Elevate Her World is a global platform, founded by four women who found each other through a joint passion and dedication for supporting women in their career journeys.
We want to provide a community to share resources, content, training, each other’s stories. An important part of our mission is to elevate other women - whether that means building confidence, helping people reach that next step in their career (whatever that looks like!) or sharing someone else’s story or brand with the group.
Recognizing that no journey will or should look the same, we want to celebrate each other, and support each other to set and achieve incredible goals.
Each month, we’ll be focusing on a different topic, from personal brand, building a network, to goal setting, and many more. We want to hear from you on topics that would be valuable for you, and we’re committed to sharing relevant content, providing interactive webinars and networking sessions, and encouraging guest speakers from within our community.
Welcome to Elevate Her World - we’re right at the start of our journey, but so happy to have you with us!
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Val Chardakova
Val is a Learning & Development professional currently working for Expedia Group in UK. The role entails tasks within learning design, facilitation, program management, performance consulting & mentoring.
Val has over 10 years of international experience working in various of roles within HR, Program & Event Management, Recruitment and L&D. She has the mix of experience working within tech giants such as Siemens, Google & Expedia Group coupled up with volunteering in organizations such as AIESEC, JCI, etc., where her passion for developing people started.
Val's strong interest in developing & supporting women brought her to working with Elin, Hayley & Callan to start Elevate Her World. Val believes that we can do more in supporting women globally by providing a mix of resources, training and building a supporting community. In Expedia Group Val was a key part of launching the Career Ownership program for women where she designed & delivered 2 of the main training sessions. She is also currently working to launch a Return from Maternity program at Expedia with the aim of easing the comeback of returning mothers to the workforce.
Val holds a MSc. degree in Business Innovation from Aarhus University, Denmark and also has completed a CIPD Level 5 Diploma in Learning & Development Management. One of her other achievements that she's proud of is that she's lived in 5 countries: Bulgaria, USA, Slovakia, Denmark & UK.
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Hayley Bowd
Hayley Hayley is based in the UK and leads global Early Careers recruiting at Expedia Group. This role is responsible for hiring over 1000 apprentices, interns and graduates into Expedia each year, ensuring we are attracting the best talent, bringing in diverse student cohorts and then accelerating their careers. With over a decade of experience in Talent Acquisition, working across manufacturing, management consulting and, for the last 5 years, in the travel industry, Hayley is able to couple her passion for people focused roles with her love for travel.
Through her career, Hayley has been involved with setting up and supporting internal women’s networks at multiple organisations. She feels strongly that more can and should be done to support women in their careers at all levels; whether that’s understanding the breadth of roles out there and what might be right for you, building self-awareness and the ability to confidently talk about yourself or forming your network. At Expedia, Hayley was a co-founder of a global Career Ownership Program, along with Elin, which piloted in 2021 with over 900 participants.
Hayley has a BA (Hons) degree in Management and Leadership, which she studied for whilst working full time. She had a place on the 2020/21 cohort of the TTG 30 under 30: Tomorrow’s Travel Leaders programme.
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Elin Mendola
Elin is a COO at a Tech start-up company within the endurance industry and is based in Stockholm. She is an experienced and accomplished leader and have over a decade of business-to-business sales experience. She is also a mom of two girls (7 and 3 years old).
For Elin it has always been important to find a deeper purpose and align her values in the work she does. And to do things that both feeds her wallet and her soul.
Her engagement in D&I and especially in supporting other women goes back several years and she has played a big part as Vice President for Expedia’s ERG for women, Women at Expedia Learning & Leading. It is not a passion but rather a mission for Elin and she truly believes that when women get together and help other women they all become more successful. Together with Hayley, Elin co-founded the Career Ownership Program at Expedia that engaged over 900 people all over the world with different backgrounds, from different teams and levels. This experience brought her to what she is doing today with Callan, Hayley and Val. Creating a space with resources, learnings and communities where women feel empowered, heard, supported and a belonging.
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Callan Swaim
Callan works in Executive Leadership Development and is based in New York City. She currently works within her favorite industry, travel with a background in corporate supply chain management, sales and marketing, and performance consulting.
Having extensive international work experience in Latin America, Europe and the US, she has quickly developed a passion for coaching, leadership and organizational culture to foster high-performing teams and employees. This passion led Callan to implement and grow mentoring within organizations across the United States in hopes of empowering all employees/students to achieve their goals through mentors, sponsors, and coaches.
Callan acquired her BA in Marketing through Wittenberg University, and MS in Management & Leadership through Purdue University Global. In September 2020, she founded her own professional coaching company Callan Swaim Coaching and is a certified Co-Active Institute and ICF coach.
In her free time, she loves to explore museums, play volleyball, and laugh as much as she can!
