The Corporate Escapology podcast is here to show you pathways that others have trodden to leave their corporate job and do something more fulfilling, purposeful and rewarding. Like Nima is doing.

Nima is a fascinating person, having qualified with a Masters in Biomedical Engineering, a brief stint in the NHS, then a radio show, articles and TV - and eventually becoming the anchor for BBC World's Middle East Business Report. She learnt an awful lot during this period about how good comms cuts through - and what to leave out, as well as how to engage and connect with your audience. After 12 years in that gig (alongside some others), Nima left to set up SHE Strategy focused on helping women get Seen, Heard and Empowered - and now she is the founder of The Brilliant Communicator, helping businesses, governments and individuals harness the power of good communication.

You can find more about Nima on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/nimaaw/ and at https://www.thebrilliantcommunicator.

The Corporate Escapology podcast is here to show you pathways that others have trodden to leave their corporate job and do something more fulfilling, purposeful and rewarding. Like Sarah is doing.

Sarah worked for over twenty years in marketing, mainly in the medical devices and healthcare sectors. She was extremely successful as marketing director for household names Philipps, Danone and others - but all the time she was expending a lot of energy as an introvert in what often feels like an extrovert's world (both marketing and corporate careers). Many times she felt like she had to adapt to the culture, forcing herself to be someone she wasn't - and while that pushed her, she also found it exhausting.

And she thought it shouldn't be that way. So when she left her corporate career, she decided she would help people like herself. Her mission is: to create a world where every quiet voice is heard and valued.

She trained as a coach specialising in helping quieter people - and she wrote a book Quiet Catalyst: The introvert's guide to thrving in your career. Take a listen to her fascinating journey in and out of corporate life as an introvert - and now helping others; it might inspire you in many ways.

You can find more about Sarah here https://www.thequietcatalyst.com and on LinkedIn: / sarahmanleytqc

And find out more about her book Quiet Catalyst on Amazon and Bookshop.org: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Quiet-Cataly... and https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/quiet...

The Corporate Escapology podcast is here to show you pathways that others have trodden to leave their corporate job and do something more fulfilling, purposeful and rewarding. Like Katie is doing.

Katie worked for more than 15 years in HR as a generalist, a pretty reductive word for what in fact means she has an awful lot of experience and knowledge. She worked for smaller businesses and scale-ups where she had to tackle the full range of HR issues. But after COVID, when she'd managed perfectly fine working from him, her company wanted her back in the office - Katie said "No, I'm off".

She left to become a freelancer, but what's more interesting is how she's packaging up her incredible knowledge into the HR Hub - a subscription service offering templates, tools, policies, guides (and an hour a month on Zoom) - everything a startup/scaleup needs to keep on the right side of the law and do well by its people. Katie gets the flexibility she wants for her young family and commercialises all that knowhow.

You can find more about Katie here: instagram.com/hr.katie

and the HR Hub here: https://www.hrkatie.co.uk/

The Corporate Escapology podcast is here to show you pathways that others have trodden to leave their corporate job and do something more fulfilling, purposeful and rewarding. Like Duncan is doing.

Duncan was bp’s head of brand; he worked for the company for more than thirty years and was both an extremely senior leader in one of the biggest companies of the world - and a deep specialist. Those two things don’t always go together in a corporate. I suspect it was one of the reasons both sides saw value in one another. But there came a time, in a recent restructure, that Duncan left the company and then left him wondering what to do next. Obvious pathways included consultancy, agency, another corporate brand role etc? But Duncan chose to follow a passion opening up “a second chapter” as he called it - as a chef. But of course, not just any old chef - Duncan’s brand experience is all about precision, consistency and perfection - in a way, it’s no surprise his cooking is just the same.

You can follow Duncan here:

https://www.instagram.com/branded_chef/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/duncan-blake

The Corporate Escapology podcast is here to show you pathways that others have trodden to leave their corporate job and do something more fulfilling, purposeful and rewarding. Like Luke is doing.

Luke fell in love with wine on a backpacking world tour and after a few years in journalism joined Majestic Wine's management scheme. He stayed there for five years, learning the trade, fine-tuning his commercial skills and even dabbling with social media. But then he decided he wanted to go it alone, so he took the bold decision to start his own business selling wine directly...and now online he's built a huge following on TikTok, Instagram and now on Substack helping normal people get more informed about wine.

You can find more about Luke here:

https://www.tiktok.com/@lukeflunder

https://lukeflunder.substack.com/

The Corporate Escapology podcast is here to show you pathways that others have trodden to leave their corporate job and do something more fulfilling, purposeful and rewarding. Like Claire is doing.

Claire Perry-Louise is the founder of Like Hearted Leaders, a community of entrepreneurs on a mission to end loneliness in leadership. She helps organisations build community and culture with their key stakeholders (customers, employees, partners). But this is not her first rodeo...for the first fifteen years of her career she was a solicitor, a job that gave her little joy but pleased those around her. She acknowledges their good intentions, but the law stifled her and made her unhappy. A chance (or was it?) video on YouTube changed her life and set her on a new more purposeful, happier life.

You can find more about Claire and Like Hearted Leaders at https://www.likeheartedleaders.com and on LinkedIn.

The Corporate Escapology podcast is here to show you pathways that others have trodden to leave their corporate job and do something more fulfilling, purposeful and rewarding. Like Lilli is doing.

Lilli is a design consultant, specialising in service design - where things just magically work for us demanding customers. She worked with corporates and consultancies before deciding to go freelance - and then specialise her design work in climate resilience. Lilli has given a lot of thought to the freelance or independent consultant model, its strengths in building personal resilience, but also its gaps in support and community. That led to her idea for IMMA Collective, a hub for freelancers and solopreneurs in the climate space.

You can find more about Lilli and IMMA at immacollective.com, read her blog on Substack and on LinkedIn.

The Corporate Escapology podcast is here to show you pathways that others have trodden to leave their corporate job and do something more fulfilling, purposeful and rewarding. Like Kia is doing.

Kia is an intuitive artist and coach - she helps female artists find their voice and their purpose, trusting in their own intuition. But she spent ten years working in various "dull, grey" corporate jobs being miserable. Kia's story is far from unique - being guided by well-intentioned parents and exclusive teachers - away from her passion and into something safe, but ultimately unfulfilling.

But Kia escaped - and followed her heart back into art, and now helping other artists. Her journey is one of hope and inspiration for all of us.

You can find more about Kia at kiacannons.com and on instagram @kiacannons

The Corporate Escapology podcast is here to show you pathways that others have trodden to leave their corporate job and do something more fulfilling, purposeful and rewarding. Like Niall is doing.

Niall Riddell is founder of Paua, an Electric Vehicle startup that offers a kind of fuel card for EV fleet drives, so they can charge anywhere.

Many people sitting in corporate jobs dream of building their own startup - it couldn't be more different, the autonomy, the agility, the pace...but that can also make it a hard leap for many corporate people (managing risk, the loneliness, too much freedom).

Niall is a special kind of founder, employing decades of corporate experience - and particularly self-awareness developed through leadership courses. He knows himself really well - and although he's learning fast what makes him and his startup successful, he's also building on solid foundations and avoiding the hype trap that befalls many a startup founder.

You can find more about Niall at linkedin.com/in/nialliriddell/ and more about Paua at pauatech.com

The Corporate Escapology podcast is here to inspire and show you pathways to leave your corporate job and do something more fulfilling, purposeful and rewarding. Like Charlie is doing.

Charlie worked for Sky, Accenture and Frasers Group which owns Sport Direct. Her time at Accenture rapidly accelerated her readiness for a "Group Head of" role at a major retail group. But Charlie is an entrepreneur at heart. Throughout her corporate career she has run a series of side-hustle businesses, including clothing, marketing services and "edutainment".

She recently left Frasers to return to consulting, this time in a boutique consultancy, where Charlie will will run her latest education/entertainment business Consulting Survival alongside.

You can find more about Charlie at Consulting Survival at @consultingcharlie6044

Ileana is an expert in local content. It’s a phrase you may not be that familiar with. Unless you work for a huge multinational establishing presence in more remote parts of the world. A multinational like Exxon, for whom Ileana worked for 24 years before deciding to form Colibri, a consultancy to help energy companies maximise local economic development. Ileana is passionate about eradicating poverty and delivering social change through the investment, resources and skills that multinationals can provide.

Ileana brings to bear decades of expertise in procurement, negotiation, policy, stakeholder management, as well as diversity and inclusion, sustainability and entrepreneurialism. And she packages that up in a consultancy offer that brings value to her clients – and gives her more variety in the work she does and potential for more impact.

linkedin.com/ileanaferber

https://colibribusiness.com/

Erica trained and qualified as an engineer, cutting her teeth on some of bp's biggest projects in Alaska, Azerbaijan and Angola. Despite the glossy images of smiling oil workers on corporate websites, the experience was tough - for men, as well as women, for local staff and the expats flown in. Erica learnt first hand what it's like to be different and for that difference to not always be celebrated.

Exhausted Erica took time out, founded Two Piers a consultancy with a purpose, to build more inclusive workplaces. She returned to bp, completed her MBA and pivoted her career commercially into mergers and acquisition, another high pressured role. No easy roles for this high achiever.

But after a couple of years, the restructure loomed and Erica decided this was her time. The spreadsheets confirmed her hypotheses - it was time to leave. And dedicate herself to Two Piers.

Watch Erica's fascinating story here and if you want more - you can find Erica at https://www.twopiersconsulting.com/,

linkedin.com/two-piers-consulting

instagram.com /twopiersconsult

Katie trained as journalist before moving into product management. But after a trip around the world with her family, Katie decided her mission was to help small businesses get to grips with customer research. After validating the need for her offer with a community on Instagram and several consulting gigs, Katie got a publishing deal and wrote a book - The Book - on customer discovery for small businesses.

Katie shares some really great insights with me about working with, rather than for, corporates, getting comfortable without the salary and being patient with ourselves.

You can find Katie's new book 'Do Penguins Eat Peaches' in all good bookstores from October 17 2023.

The Corporate Escapology podcast is here to inspire and show you pathways to leave your corporate job and do something more fulfilling, purposeful and rewarding. Like Steve is doing.

Steve Cook spent 25 years working for just one company is a variety of roles - moving from a technical entry into innovation and deeply commercial roles in bp's technology and alternative energy organisations.

But when his time was up (his words) he came to realise that he wanted to turn his hobby as a potter into a major component of his life after corporate - fifty percent of his time. Leaving 50% to use his corporate skills, experience and knowhow in the cleantech startup ecosystem to chair boards and advise cleantech businesses and investment funds.

Hi there, welcome to Corporate Escapology the Podcast.

I'm your host, Adam Forbes, author of Corporate Escapology a book to help people package up all their amazing corporate skills, experiences and knowledge and use them to build a more fulfilling, rewarding, purposeful and enjoyable life after corporate.

Each episode I'll be talking to people who have left their corporate jobs to do something different - often many things. We'll hear their journey - the practical and emotional side of leaving something behind - as well as what they're doing now.

I hope it will both inspire you and help build confidence that if they can do it why can't you?!

You can find me on instagram @corporateescapologist or by dropping me a line at adam@corporateescapology.com.