Jennifer Dulski began her career with a marketing job at Yahoo.

Jennifer Dulski, founder and CEO of Rising Team and lecturer in management at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, recently shared how demotions have had a positive impact on her career. In an interview with Business Insider, Ms Dulski told us about her unconventional career choices. She started her career in 1999 with a marketing job at Yahoo, right after completing her MBA. At the time, her job was only half as well paid as other positions that had offered her. However, the American said she chose it because she wanted to work in both technology and business.

“Most of my colleagues didn’t understand my decision at the time, but I was excited to start working in the technology industry,” said Ms. Dulski Business Insider, She also noted that demotions helped positively impact her career.

“The first time it happened when I decided to take the job at Yahoo, and the second time it happened during my time at Yahoo. I decided to move into a general management role, and when I made that move, I accepted a demotion,” Ms. Dulski said.

“People looked at me and said, ‘What are you doing?’ But I knew I wanted to try running a company, and there was only one job open, which happened to be two levels below my job in marketing. We compromised in the middle so I only got demoted one level. That was a great move for me – it took my career in a different direction. I ended up getting promoted. And in about 18 months, they gave me six companies to run,” she added.

In addition, Ms. Dulski said that after nearly nine years at Yahoo, she left her executive position to join a small startup called Dealmap, a small startup that allowed people to find local coupons and deals. However, many people questioned her decision because she left an executive position to join a “much smaller company.”

“We eventually sold Dealmap to Google, and I decided to stay there. And two years later, I left that much better-paying job at Google to become president and CEO of Change.org, a petition website, before spending a few years running groups and communities at Facebook,” she told the outlet.

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After 25 years in leadership roles at Yahoo, Google and Facebook, Ms. Dulski announced that she has founded her own company, Rising Team – a platform that helps managers at all levels conduct skill-building sessions with employees, regardless of their work configuration.

“I have chosen the most unexpected or less obvious career option at many points along the way,” she said. “Everything I’ve learned about starting a business, I learned in all my previous roles in technology,” she added.

“In 2020, I started my own company, which feels like the pinnacle of my career,” Ms. Dulski told the outlet.