Testimonials
Marc Ethier
Editor-in-Chief, Poets&Quants
I’ve been Jane Cortez’s editor at Poets&Quants for a few years now, and I can’t recommend her enough. Working with her has been a delight.
Jane first wrote for us about leaving acting for an MBA at Columbia, and she didn’t dress it up. She wrote about arriving at business school having never opened Excel, then sitting four-hour Excel exams beside classmates with years of finance behind them. On paper it was the familiar career-pivot story – in her hands it was honest and specific in a way that’s rare from a first-time contributor. And it connected with our readers.
What I count on from Jane is range. She’ll write a personal, voice-driven essay one month and turn around a sharp interview with a Columbia professor on AI and the future of work the next. She asks good questions, listens to the answers, and brings a storyteller’s instinct to material that can read dry on the page, which is most of what a communications job comes down to.
That instinct has shown up beyond our pages. She built her podcast, Your Career, Unscripted, from the ground up and launched it with a CNN op-ed, drawing out executives and rising professionals about how their careers really unfolded. She gets people to open up, then turns the conversation into something an audience will stay with.
Jane is a pleasure to work with. She pitches her own ideas, makes her deadlines, takes edits without a fuss, and sends back copy that needs almost nothing from me. In a freelance pool where my week goes to chasing people and rewriting drafts, she’s the one I never had to worry about. Whoever brings her on is getting someone reliable, creative, and easy to root for. Happy to talk further if it would help.
Ty Root, Managing Director, North America/Global at Subvrsive (WPP Owned Studio)
I had the pleasure of working with Jane at Subvrsive, where she was a great synergetic and strategic thinker. Her collaboration skills and ability to connect with people across all departments made her an integral part of our team. Her presentations to senior leaders were not only compelling but also showcased her ability to distill complex strategies into clear, actionable insights.
Jane also has a direct communication style, coupled with her adeptness in competitive analysis and strategic thinking, which helped keep us ahead in a very fast-paced ad/tech industry. She was never shy to challenge the status quo, always bringing fresh, innovative ideas to the table that helped Subvrsive win big projects, all while leading to happy clients.
She also showed enthusiasm for exploring new avenues and her commitment to digging deep for innovative solutions has left an indelible mark on Subvrsive. Jane is a true asset, embodying professionalism and creativity, and I'd happily recommend her to any organization looking to elevate their strategic approach using emerging technologies.
Eric McCall, Director, Portfolio & Strategy, PlayStation Studios
I had the pleasure of managing Jane in the summer of 2022 when she joined my team as a Product Strategy intern for PlayStation Studios. In interviewing Jane, I found her passion for the Metaverse refreshing and energizing and hired her to spearhead competitive and market analysis on the Metaverse – to which she did a tremendous job.
Jane brought a multitude of wonderful traits to her role. First of a few to note is the passion she exhibited in the interview was only a fraction of the positivity, enthusiasm, and joy she brought to her project and the team, which we have certainly missed in the weeks since her return to school.
Secondly, Jane couples her enthusiasm with a strong desire to learn and grow. I find that interns sometimes have difficulty asking questions as if it’s a sign of weakness. Jane avoided that trap and embraced asking questions to improve herself and her project, which I strongly believe is foundational to the best employees.
Third, Jane exhibited an impressive amount of thought and rigor to her work.
Jane’s internship project was aggressive in it’s scope and she did an impressive job digging in and delivering a final presentation that both met its goals and can serve as a thought starter for months to come. I was very happy managing Jane and she was a joy to have on the team.
Katie Christian, Emmy Nominated Producer
Jane Bernhard is one of the best and brightest young minds I’ve had the pleasure to manage. Ms. Bernhard is the ultimate combination of intellect, instinct, charisma and grit. I hire people for their competence, their heart and their hustle; she over-indexes on all three.
Her talent comes so naturally and her work product appears effortless, but having been in her shoes and performed those same tasks in the service of others for years; I know how much hard work and work ethic they require. Her ability to narrow in on the ‘inauthenticities’ of a story, her taste and perception in sussing out a project’s commerciality, and her eye for talent are exceptional. I can’t take credit for what she was born with or what she brought to her internship at its start, but it has been one of the true privileges of my career to watch her blossom these past few years.
Jane works tirelessly. She goes above and beyond. She brings so much passion and wonder to the table. In full candor, she’d inspired me and breathed fresh life into our organization.
I have no doubt that Jane will make a phenomenal creative leader one day. Because she already is one today.
Ana Sofía Guzman, Founder (Binibi) - Bilingual Interactive Books For Children
I am the founder of Binibi, a company that creates interactive bilingual musical and sound books for children. I hired Jane to conduct extensive customer interviews and market research to inform our future collection. During the interview process, she demonstrated a great ability to connect with people, a lot of enthusiasm for the role, and analytical thinking skills which convinced me she would be a great fit and strong
collaborator.
Over the course of two months, Jane interviewed 26 of our customers one on one. She analyzed the interviews across a framework she created, and ultimately presented an extremely thorough and valuable set of recommendations informed by data and market research. These insights will have a direct impact on our future business and product line. In addition to the interviews, Jane also conducted a customer survey, and she then synthesized all of the data from different sources into specific, clear, and actionable insights.Jane is exceptionally reliable, organized, and strategic.
She is comfortable collaborating with others, asking relevant questions, working independently, and receiving feedback.Due to her strong performance on this project, I asked her to stay on longer and conduct a competitive analysis on various book topics using another framework she created.
Again, her work exceeded my expectations, leading me to retain her as a consultant for partnership development. She is adaptable to many different kinds of work - and it is clear she enjoys coming into different projects and quickly adding value - even if something is new to her.As a communicator and collaborator, Jane is empathetic, positive, driven, and easy to work with.
I highly recommend her to any organization looking to enhance their competitive analysis, market research, product recommendations, and customer research.
National Playwrights Conference Finalist - Eugene O'Neill Theater
Immense congratulations on reaching the Finalist Round of the 2020 National Playwrights Conference!
Less than 5% of plays submitted to the National Playwrights Conference make it to the Finalist Round each year.
Out of over 1,500 scripts received, Unit 13 was one of 63 Finalists under serious consideration for inclusion in the summer conference.
The O’Neill offers a full-throated endorsement of your playwriting, which was proudly championed by our artistic staff and reading team alike.
We hope that this letter will serve as vigorous recommendation to any company or literary office looking for exceptionally talented playwrights and their work.
It is therefore our pleasure to recommend Jane and
their play, Unit 13 which rose to the top of the 2020 National Playwrights Conference’s highly competitive, anonymous, and multi-tiered selection process.
Though over two hundred readers take part in this process, each
of our 63 Finalists was additionally nominated by a member of the NPC Artistic Council.