John Tarnoff

John Tarnoff (born 1952) is a reinvention career coach who provides career counseling for baby boomer and late career professionals looking to defy ageism, work beyond retirement, and pivot to a new job or new business as a second act or encore career.

A 40-year veteran of the Los Angeles entertainment industry, Tarnoff's career hit a wall at age 50. The tech startup he had co-founded was wiped out by the bursting of the dot-com “bubble,” and like many late career, baby boomer professionals in similar circumstances, felt uncertain and adrift in his career. He decided to go back to school to seek a second act career, and earned a master's degree in spiritual psychology. Pivoting to a career focus on people and career counseling, he networked his way to a new role as Head of Show Development at DreamWorks Animation. from 2006 – 2009. In this position, he developed culture-changing creative leadership training and college recruiting programs that helped the company earn a place on both Forbes’ and Fortune's “100 Best Places to Work” lists.In 2010, he joined the Carnegie Mellon University Heinz College Masters of Entertainment Industry Management graduate program, serving as a graduate level professor and Head of Industry Relations. He has also consulted for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences, the Australian Film, TV & Radio School, the ACME Network, a digital distance learning company, as well as The Boeing Company, in collaboration with BAFTA Award-winning production designer Alex McDowell.

In 2012, he launched his Boomer Reinvention® career coaching program to support late career baby boomers looking to start sustainable second act or encore careers beyond traditional retirement. He is the author of the forthcoming book: "Boomer Reinvention: How to Create Your Dream Career after 50" (Reinvention Press, Los Angeles 2017).

Tarnoff began his career in the mid-1970s working as a literary agent, and then as a film studio production executive and film producer. In these capacities, he was responsible for films including Diner, The Year of Living Dangerously, Pink Floyd The Wall, Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure and The Power of One. A co-founder of Village Roadshow Pictures in 1988, he pioneered U.S./Australian co-productions in the late 1980s and early 1990s executive producing a handful of films including The Delinquents and Prisoners of the Sun.Branching into multimedia development in 1994, he licensed the interactive rights to Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four and produced the video game Big Brother based on the book. He and director John Badham co-wrote the successful PC/PlayStation game WarGames, based on Badham's hit movie.From 1995 to 2003, with writer and artist Robit Hairman, he co-founded Talkie, Inc., a technology company that created online conversational animated characters for marketing, brand building, lead generation, customer service and training. Talkie created "Claire," Sprint PCS' automated customer service rep.

Tarnoff holds a B.A. from Amherst College, and a M.A. in Spiritual Psychology from the University of Santa Monica. He grew up in New York and Paris, and lives in Los Angeles.