I recently moved from my role as Sales Director in Google after a ten-year career in the iconic tech giant. This journey had afforded me a highly satisfying professional path. The decision to leave had not been an easy one. No one can do the same thing forever. A decade is ample time for a career in one company! Besides I always had in mind an ambition to run my own business for personal impact.

As I arrived at the decision to change, I came across some research entitled ‘Women Want Five Things’ from The Center for Talent Innovation in New York. This helped me understand some of the reasons for my itchy feet. Women seek personal impact and we are prepared to leave the so-called powerful jobs in the absence of these five things:

Five Things For Personal Impact

1) A free path to ‘flourish’, a better balance of work performance and well-being, even if it comes in the way of ambition

2) Mastery in a chosen subject, and recognition for it

3) Meaning and purpose: that what we spend our days doing actually has an impact

4) We, women, want to be empowered. And in turn, empower others

and

5) Women want to be appropriately recompensed for good performance

Points 3) and 4) particularly resonated with me because they made me realize the path I was considering- that of a coach- was in me, inherently.  Having built up so much experience in senior management roles I was now in the perfect position to launch my own practice.

In the last five years, I have been skilling up and have taken qualifications to make myself credible in this field. I have discovered the deep satisfaction that comes with helping business people untangle the many factors and dilemmas that they face today.

My coaching practice will be designed to help people get more contentment out of their working life. I intend sharing my insights on my journey in this blog. I hope you enjoy it.

(Source: The Centre for Talent Innovation- Women Want Five Things. Sylvia Ann Hewlett and Melinda Marshall, 2014)