Future of Work Strategist, entrepreneur and founder

I have never really fitted neatly into one box. Neither has my career.

I grew up in an entrepreneurial family and started early. At school, I ran a bacon business that I eventually sold to my history teacher.

I began my career in FMCG marketing, working on brands including Clover, Quorn and Mum deodorant. As part of my marketing degree, I spent a year in Paris in 1985 working as a marketing intern for the French trade association for artificial intelligence.

In my mid-twenties, I travelled around the world for a year. When I came home, I worked as an interim manager at Dairy Crest, returning three times.

Then people started asking me where they could find someone like me. So in 1996 I co-founded an interim management business. We grew it from zero to £5.5 million turnover in five years.

Start with the work, then look at who could contribute

That experience changed the way I thought about work. I became fascinated by what happens when we stop starting with a job title and start instead with the work that needs doing, the capability available, and the different ways people could contribute.

I have always been good at spotting potential. I can often see beyond someone’s CV or current job title to what else they could do and where they could add value. What frustrates me is how often extraordinary, capable people are overlooked simply because they do not fit neatly into a conventional job box.

Over the past decade, that thinking has taken me into schools, careers education and work with young people and the Careers & Enterprise Company, including co-creating interactive careers festivals.

I later co-created a 50/50 work experiment, bringing together 50 people over 50, 50 organisations and 50 hours of work. Looking back, it was an early version of what I would now call a microship.

Longer lives need more possibilities, not smaller boxes

In August 2025, I shared an image describing the ages of 55 to 65 as “decline”. It went viral around the world and became a much bigger conversation about ageism, careers, identity and what longer working lives could look like.

Today, Career Voyage brings all of those threads together. I help organisations rethink talent, work and workforce design. I also help people explore what comes next, whether that means work, learning, contribution, connection or life beyond work.

Because people do not fit neatly into boxes. And neither should our careers or our lives.