ABOUT ANDREA
Andrea is a serious java junkie, and tea tippler, who spent 20 years as an award-winning broadcast journalist – the last 14 with CNN – before reinventing herself in 2008 as a Public Relations and NGO (non-profit) executive.
During her time at CNN, Andrea spent 5 years as a foreign correspondent based in Japan and China and 8 years as CNN’s State Department correspondent reporting on American foreign policy. (Check out the photo of Andrea below in Tripoli getting an exclusive interview with Libya’s former dictator Muammar Qaddafi in December 2003 while she was EIGHT months pregnant with her son.) And last, but certainly not least, she finally put her Political Science degree to use (!) – chasing down members of Congress for on-camera interviews as Capitol Hill correspondent.
In 2008, she began her Goldilocks-like journey to reinvent herself — first, as a Senior Vice President of Communications at M & R Strategic Services –- a cause-oriented Public Affairs firm. This “bowl of porridge” was too cold. Then, in 2010, at the American Red Cross where she took on her new job as Director of International Communications –just two weeks after the massive earthquake in Haiti that left 220,000 Haitians homeless! This “bowl of porridge” was way too hot.
A year later, Andrea spotted a job posting at Mercy Corps, a global humanitarian and development organization, and was hired in 2011 as Vice President of Global Engagement & Policy. One of the best parts of this job was that she got to travel all over the world, including to the Himalayan Kingdom of Nepal, where she and a colleague trekked the Annapurna circuit and climbed to the top of Poon Hill at 10,531’ (see photo below) to watch the sunrise over Mt. Everest. In case you’re wondering, this “bowl of porridge” was just right!
Eventually, in June 2017, Andrea listened to her heart and quit her job at Mercy Corps in order to become a stay-at-home mom. After traveling the world, she wanted to invest in deepening her relationship with her then 13-year old son before he decided she was just a figment of his overactive teenage imagination and refused to admit they are actually related. Now Andrea is taking advantage of their time together to travel the world, as a family, and took a trip to the Middle East in December of 2019. In fact, it was while Andrea was at home being a mom and cooking, cleaning toilets, vacuuming and scrubbing the kitchen floor, and still meeting up with young people over cups of coffee, that she conceived of Time4Coffee as a way to help many more college students, and aspiring young professionals build successful, healthy, and happy lives!
ABOUT T4C
Time4Coffee (T4C) is a unique virtual library of carefully curated career conversations available 7-days a week, 24/7 with hundreds of professionals – in dozens of different careers — who’ve been skillfully interviewed by former award-winning CNN journalist, Andrea Koppel.
As the Time4Coffee name implies, these in-depth ‘virtual networking coffees’ – packaged as espresso shots, K-Cups, as well as main T4C episodes – are specially brewed to cut through job board BS and explore many of the same topics covered when people meet, in person, to ask for career advice.
T4C’s mission is to level the playing field for college students and young professionals, no matter where they went to school and no matter who they know (or more likely don’t know), by providing them with first-hand career insights from the professionals who are actually doing those jobs.
In addition, Time4Coffee’s mission also includes interviews with experts on health, self-care and well-being because what good is it to get your dream job, if your physical and/or mental health sucks? This is why Time4Coffee’s website includes a 360º focus on helping young people develop the skills they’ll need to build a healthy, happy and truly fulfilled and balanced life.
Since launching in August 2018, T4C’s virtual library of career-related interviews and blog posts has never been more important than it is right now.
So wha are you waiting for? Press play and start binging on T4C episodes to learn more about the jobs and careers you’ll love!