Influential Women spotlights Shanelle Porter-Simmons on career transitions

Influential Women featured retired Marine Corps Lt. Col. Shanelle Porter-Simmons on Nov. 3, 2026, for her work helping professionals, especially women military officers, navigate life after service. Through The Fifth Path LLC, she is promoting a framework built around small, low-risk tests before making major career decisions.

Why it matters: - Porter-Simmons is aiming at a common but difficult transition: moving from a high-achievement career into a next chapter that fits time, health, relationships and finances. - Her approach is designed to reduce the risk of making a major change before a person knows what daily life in that new role would actually look like. - The work is especially aimed at women military officers nearing retirement or already retired.

What happened: - Influential Women featured Shanelle Porter-Simmons on Nov. 3, 2026, for her work through The Fifth Path LLC. - Porter-Simmons is a retired Marine Corps lieutenant colonel, former commander, author of Try a New Path and former elite track athlete. - She uses her background in military leadership, civilian human resources and speaking to guide professionals through major life and career transitions.

The details: - Porter-Simmons encourages people leaving military service to ask what an ordinary week should look like before committing to a new job or role. - Her own transition from military service to a civilian HR job showed her that a strong salary and familiar skills do not always match the life she wants. - The civilian role limited the travel and half marathons she had imagined, which pushed her to think beyond the next title. - Through The Fifth Path LLC, she uses a New Path in Motion Framework to pressure-test options before a major commitment. - The framework asks participants to choose a small experience or action, identify support needed, put a first step on the calendar and reflect on what they learn. - Porter-Simmons says, “Movement creates evidence. Evidence creates clarity.” - She says the point is to learn from the experience instead of waiting for certainty before starting. - After 14 days, participants can continue, adjust, explore another option or stop. - The action should fit a person’s time, resources and responsibilities. - Her book, Try a New Path, looks at how conformity, fear, doubt and comfort shape decisions about change. - Writing the book helped Porter-Simmons see that she values listening to people’s stories and helping them spot possibilities they may have missed.

Between the lines: - Porter-Simmons is turning a personal career pivot into a repeatable method for others facing uncertainty. - The framework reflects a practical bias: test the next step in real life before making a bigger leap. - Her message also pushes back on the idea that success should be defined only by job title or external achievement.

What's next: - Porter-Simmons is directing people to learn more about her work at Shanelle Porter-Simmons or on her Influential Women profile. - She says she will continue speaking, teaching and serving as a strategic thought partner for people designing a next chapter. - Her broader goal is to help people make decisions that reflect their own priorities and define success on their own terms.

The bottom line: - Porter-Simmons is packaging military discipline, athletic preparation and human resources experience into a career-transition playbook built on small experiments, not big leaps.