After 25+ years leading brands in tourism, hospitality and entertainment (from DreamWorks to City Winery), Rita Chen realised the work she loved most wasn’t just about campaigns. It was about clarity, momentum, and partnership: helping teams move from complexity to confidence.

Which led her to launch Rita Chen Consulting, offering a different approach to marketing consultancy: collaborating with growth-minded teams to co-create marketing that inspires, aligns, and fuels intentional growth: with empathy, curiosity and plenty of heart.

Rita is also quite the adventurer! A curious soul that loves hiking, exploring Chicago, where she lives, or cooking – a health journey that we speak about during our conversation. You’ll hear her talking about food as medicine, and approach that helped her better her health; however, I would like to flag that neither Rita or I are health experts and this is just a conversation based on opinions and personal experiences, you should consult your medical team, professional and / or experts to help with your own health, diagnosis and treatment.

We begin our conversation talking about the meaning of change, highlighting its internal and external aspects, and how she navigates it with empathy, curiosity and structure:

1. Health Diagnosis: Life Perspective Shift: an earthquake moment, as Rita shared her personal journey with health challenges, starting with the diagnosis of rheumatoid arthritis at age 40, which was followed by a breast cancer diagnosis three years later. She discovered a healing path through food, an elimination diet that improved her symptoms and inflammation. Here is the book she mentions in our conversation: The Immune System Recovery Plan: A Doctor's 4-Step Program to Treat Autoimmune Disease https://a.co/d/eJRhnX2. And if you are around Chicago (or fancy travelling there!) Rita’s medical team was Dr. Boham at the Ultrawellness Center 
2. A portfolio career: long live variety! And Rita’s journey is testament to that. A brilliant marketeer, her career spans from Los Angeles at Dreamworks and Nestle, moving back to Chicago, where she worked in the corporate world before entering consultancy. We talk about what prompted the change, how she navigated it and the routine that keeps her going.  
3. Health pillars: slow mornings, walks, nature and movement… a routine that keeps her healthy, physically and mentally. We talk about strength training and its impact on the nervous system and resilience (as well as overall fitness!).
4. Stay on your lane: they say comparison is the killer of joy, and we talk about what that meant for Rita and the liberation that came from finding their own purpose, doing things in her own timeline and connecting to herself. Internal living vs external drive.

If you want to connect with Rita

https://www.ritachenconsulting.com/

For wellness/health: https://www.tritaeats.com 

Her Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tritaeats/

To connect with me:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/lucia-paredes-suanzes/

https://www.coachingwithlucia.com

https://www.instagram.com/coachingwithlucia/

lucia@coachingwithlucia.com

Follow us on: ⁠⁠https://www.instagram.com/c_is_for_change/⁠⁠

Music from Soundstripe: Our Way, by Luke Bergs and Markvards.