Dr. Sarabeth Berk Bickerton
Dr. Sarabeth’s Bio
Dr. Sarabeth Berk Bickerton is a trailblazer in the future of work, recognized as the leading expert on hybrid professional identity and career belonging. A TEDx speaker featured in Forbes and author of More Than My Title, Sarabeth continues to push the boundaries of career development with her forthcoming book, Career Belonging, set to release in August.
Known as a Creative Disruptor, she integrates her identities as an artist, researcher, educator, and designer to create transformative experiences for individuals and organizations. Her career journey began with a professional identity crisis—an unraveling that led to a powerful realization: her greatest value isn’t in choosing one title but in the intersections of her professional identities. This insight became the foundation of her work.
Through pioneering research, Sarabeth has developed one-of-a-kind frameworks that go beyond traditional forms of personal branding, career development and workforce development approaches. Today, she helps professionals who wear many hats uncover their hybrid professional identity—the unique combination of their skills, passions, and experiences—so they can confidently communicate their value in any setting. Her clients and audiences report feeling more authentic, empowered, and aligned with their true selves, while organizations learn to leverage the power of recognizing employees as more than job titles.
Sarabeth holds a PhD from the University of Denver, with degrees from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and Rhode Island School of Design. She started her career as an art educator and ski instructor before shifting into innovation strategy and becoming an independent researcher. She lives in Boulder, Colorado with her husband, son and golden retriever, and constantly navigates how hybridity is a critical part of her life both personally and professionally.
A few fun facts, she loves dark chocolate chip cookies and often escapes into the wilderness to backcountry ski or mountain bike. She dreams of owning a sprinter van and living the vanlife someday.
Hi, I’m Sarabeth.
I’m a hybrid professional, and I call myself a Creative Disruptor— that’s my true professional identity.
More Than My Title, grew out of my own professional identity crisis. For years, I felt stuck and pigeonholed in my career path, and I didn’t know who I was. I went back to school to get my doctorate, thinking a credential would be the answer, but I found myself more lost and confused about who I was than ever before.
This is when I started researching professional identity and interviewing people from diverse industries about how they were more than their job titles.
My “aha” moment was listening to worker after worker tell me, “I wear a lot of hats,” but what they really meant was, “I’m the sum of all the hats I wear!” That’s when I realized workers can be hybrids, the combination of all their work identities, instead of only experts, generalists, or jacks-of-all-trades.
This completely changed how I saw myself and how I wanted to be seen in my work.
Instead of being the job title people told me I was, I invented my own. My hybrid title of Creative Disruptor truly captures my authentic identity because it’s distinct and summarizes who I am when all my disparate professional identities merge together.
Today, I’m a leading researcher and pioneer of this new field of hybrid professional identity. I work at the intersection of career development, identity studies, and personal branding.
I love supporting people in career transitions who are struggling with their professional identity as well as career development professionals, business leaders and HR managers who are seeking to attract, grow, and retain hybrid talent to build a stronger sense of belonging and fulfillment in their company culture.
