Wisepreneurs | Independent Professionals Building Practice on Their Own Terms

Debra Zahay-Blatz taught digital marketing for 25 years at St. Edwards University after 17 years in customer data management. With a Kellogg School of Management MBA and a PhD in customer information management, Debra explains how solopreneurs build sustainable digital marketing strategy.  The conversation covers  selecting channels based on where customers actually search rather than where you pr...

Hazel Edwards OAM wrote 200 books over 50 years sustaining independent professional practice as an Australian authorpreneur.  Best known for There's a Hippopotamus on My Roof Eating Cake — now 45 years old and adapted into a film, touring musical, braille, and Auslan — Hazel has sustained a prolific independent writing practice without organisational support, adapting from print to digital ac...

Anna Molnar helps women entrepreneurs over 50 navigate pricing for freelancers and charge what their expertise is worth. Based in The Hague and working internationally, Anna left embassy work at 40 to build an independent coaching practice focused on expertise monetisation for women solopreneurs. Anna explains why undercharging is the most consistent problem among women entrepreneurs and why many...

Knowledge management tools for independent professionals who need to curate information without burning out in the process. Tomas Baranek is a Czech publisher who translates notable English-language books on personal development, productivity, and science. After experiencing burnout himself, Tomas rebuilt his working practice around specific tools like Readwise and Roam Research for building a sec...

The Indie List is a high-touch marketplace connecting freelance marketing professionals with Irish clients, serving approximately 7,000 independent marketing solopreneurs.  Úna shares how she left advertising in 2005 when the industry proved unwelcoming to women with young children, how a LinkedIn post during COVID became a business, and how The Indie List's earn-learn-connect model addresses...

Melisa Liberman coaches solo consultants to grow their practice using a 14-step roadmap and free IEC Toolkit. (110 chars ✓) An accidental consultant who stayed on at her employer when she moved to Hawaii, Melisa went from Accenture executive to building a coaching practice dedicated to independent consultants. The conversation covers  Her four-C framework for building a consulting client base (cli...

Robert Vlach wrote The Freelance Way and founded Freelancing.eu to help independent professionals develop pricing strategies that match their actual expertise rather than competing on cost. Robert explains how experienced freelancers and consultants can move beyond industry-standard rates to pricing that reflects decades of accumulated skill.  He covers the specific challenges independent professi...

From her base in Belgium, Marleen draws on 26 years building HR staffing strategy at Randstad (world number one in staffing services) before launching Nextconomy, an online knowledge platform covering the evolving world of flexible work.  She explains why the freelance workforce is growing 6 to 9 percent per year across every professional domain, not just ICT and engineering, and why most organisa...

Michelle Kvello, founder of Lantern Partners and creator of the Corporate to Consultant course, shares what independent professionals need to know about finances when leaving corporate employment to build a solopreneur consulting practice. Drawing from 12 years running her own CFO advisory firm, Michelle explains why most new consultants underprice their services by basing rates on their corporate...

Sue Ellson moved from corporate banking to becoming an independent LinkedIn specialist, author of five books including Gigsters, and a self-described gigster who has built a multi-stranded career across consulting, writing, and professional education. Sue explains how she stays employable and visible as an independent professional through deliberate online presence and continuous learning.  She sh...

Sandra McGuire, founder of Money Wellness, turned two decades of corporate accounting expertise into an independent coaching practice helping people take control of their personal finances. Her journey from corporate roles to solopreneur practice is itself a case study in expertise monetisation. Sandra explains how unconscious money stories from childhood drive adult financial behaviour, why addre...

Charlotta Segerlund-Darnell helps experienced professionals treat psychological wellbeing as something to maintain, not something to fix after it breaks. Based in Stockholm and working with clients worldwide, she is a CBT therapist, behavioural scientist, and mindfulness instructor who calls herself a psychological strength trainer because she wants seeking help for mental health to feel like goin...

Paula Ronan helps experienced professionals understand what marketing actually requires when you move from corporate to independent practice.  Based in rural Ireland, she made the transition from corporate marketing in London to freelancing and built Ronan Marketing into a consultancy serving Irish businesses. Paula covers the distinct business cultures between corporate London and rural Ireland,...

Connie Malamed helps experienced professionals understand how instructional design makes workplace learning actually work.  With 25 years in the field, she is the author of Visual Design Solutions and Visual Language for Designers, and runs Mastering Instructional Design and The eLearning Coach. Connie explains the difference between instructional designers and trainers, why most online courses fa...

Tash Menon Verheul founded MASH, a creative technology company that curates teams of independent professionals across 31 countries for branding and marketing projects. Instead of running a traditional agency with full-time staff, she hand-selects experienced freelancers averaging 12 to 15 years in their field to build custom teams for every brief. Tash shares how she built the business from Melbou...

Valentine Gatard has been an employee for only nine months in her entire life. Based in Paris, she works as a coach, speaker, and host of the Work Narratives podcast, helping companies and independent professionals rethink their relationship with work through a human-centred lens. Valentine explains how her musical background in jazz shapes her approach to coaching and teamwork. Drawing on the dyn...

Andrea Chase, Canadian entrepreneur and founder of True Marketing Verse, shares how she built expertise across psychology, teaching, hospitality, and sales before channelling it all into a digital marketing agency serving women-owned businesses and solopreneurs. Andrea discusses the mental stamina required to sustain a business over a decade, including managing burnout and the support networks tha...

Tracy Enos, LinkedIn consultant and founder of a Kansas City-based consultancy, shares how solopreneurs and independent professionals use LinkedIn to find clients, build referral networks, and grow a sustainable business without a website. Tracy explains her HEAT system (Human, Expertise, Authority, Trust) and why 95 per cent of LinkedIn profiles fail to convert because they read like resumes. She...

Amanda Reeves has worked in administrative support for over 40 years, building an independent practice entirely through referrals after starting as a junior typist clerk at Gas and Fuel.  Based in Melbourne, she provides executive-level administrative support to solopreneurs and independent consultants, working in their homes and remotely. Amanda explains how she built a freelance practice without...

Terri Connellan helps experienced women professionals navigate career independence through self-leadership, creativity, and psychological type awareness. After 30 years in TAFE as a teacher and leader in adult vocational education, she negotiated a job share, trained as a life transition coach and psychological type practitioner, and wrote Wholehearted: Self-leadership for Women in Transition. Ter...

In this Wisepreneurs Podcast episode, I talk with Meredith Fuller OAM about the award-winning documentary, 'Home Truths', which focuses on domestic violence and is co-produced by Lesley Coleman & Rod Winning.  She shares helpful tips on dealing with this issue. Meredith also talks about women in their 50s struggling in their careers and advises them to explore new directions.  Mentio...

Elina Jutelyte explains pricing for freelancers through a first-of-its-kind global study across 13 independent communities. After 20 years in corporate event management, Elina started freelancing and found how isolated independent work can be. She founded the Freelance Business Community in Belgium and created Freelance Business Month, now attracting 4,000 attendees across multiple countries. Her...

Aging, employment, and retirement research from a gerontology professor on what the 100-year life actually means for experienced professionals.  Professor Martin Hyde from the University of Leicester studies how aging reshapes work, why ageism operates as the least addressed barrier to late-career employment, and what quality of life research reveals about professional longevity.  He explains why...

Gabrielle Sun explains how AI is reshaping expertise building in corporate learning, from instructional design principles to the tools every knowledge worker should explore. Originally from China, Gabrielle completed a Master's in Educational Technology at Carnegie Mellon before becoming an instructional designer at a large global corporation, working remotely across time zones. The conversat...

Alison Grade helps experienced professionals build sustainable freelance practices as the author of The Freelance Bible, published by Penguin. Her path runs from film and TV production, where she spent years as a freelancer and producer, into writing, teaching, and running her own motorbike training company. Alison covers the practical mechanics of starting and running a freelance business: pricin...