Wisepreneurs | Independent Professionals Building Practice on Their Own Terms

Productivity obsession is failing experienced professional women, and the future of work demands care, not more optimisation.  Laetitia Vitaud is a French writer and expert on the future of work from a feminist perspective.  Drawing from her latest book, she explains why our obsession with productivity creates diminishing returns  How entrepreneurship among older professional women is reshaping wo...

Salina Yeung breaks down her three-level framework for expert positioning on LinkedIn, showing professionals how to turn their profile into a lead generation tool.  A former LinkedIn employee, Salina left her corporate role during COVID, started blogging about the platform, and built The InAcademy after former clients asked her to train their sales teams. The conversation covers why LinkedIn suits...

Mark Elliott coaches experienced professionals starting independent businesses after 50, helping them navigate the specific challenges of launching a venture later in life when the stakes, the skills gap, and the motivation are all different from doing it at 25. Mark covers why lifestyle design matters more than revenue targets for older entrepreneurs, how to track spending as the foundation of fi...

Lisa-Marie Cabrelli turned expertise from acting, eCommerce, and a PhD in Creative Writing into a location-independent coaching practice. She has written seven novels, built and sold a multi-million dollar eCommerce business, and returns to Wisepreneurs after her first appearance on episode 9. Lisa-Marie shares how completing her PhD in Creative Writing and story structure now inform her Heroine&a...

Lisa Ross-Marcus helps experienced women professionals navigate career transitions and build leadership capability from her Amsterdam executive coaching practice. Her path from the performing arts in Paris to executive coaching shapes a distinctive approach that blends kinaesthetic awareness, artistic creativity, and structured coaching method. Lisa specialises in career transitions for women lead...

Matt Dowling founded the Freelancer Club, a 60,000-member community that helps independent professionals build sustainable freelance careers, after an unpaid invoice nearly ended his own. Early in his freelance photography career in London, a client went bankrupt owing him 11,000 pounds. With no contract, no legal protection, and months of debt, he discovered that thousands of other freelancers we...

Krisna Hanks helps women over 60 build metabolic health, strength, and nutrition practices grounded in 33 years as a professional dancer. She is a certified health coach and LCHF/keto nutrition advisor with an MSc in Kinesiology, an MBA, and is the author of Finding Lifestyle Sanity. After three decades dancing professionally in the US and Europe, Krisna transitioned to health coaching at Canyon R...

Jon Younger helps experienced professionals understand the freelance economy through his Forbes column and his book Agile Talent: How to Source and Manage Outside Experts. A management consultant for decades, Jon discovered at age 62 that a third of the workforce at pharmaceutical distributor McKesson were contractors and part-timers being managed as full-time employees. That discovery reshaped hi...

Suzanne Noble has reinvented her career more times than most experienced professionals manage in a lifetime: from singer with The Dirty Blondes, to Channel 4 TV producer, to co-founding a PR agency that grew to 1.4 million pounds in revenue with 12 staff, to global PR and marketing director for Lazy Town, to launching a baby sling company, to building a TikTok channel with 50,000 followers, to fou...

Mary-Clare Switz explains why getting the financial foundations of an expert business right from day one can determine whether it succeeds or fails. A registered BAS Agent with more than 40 years of experience, Mary-Clare has been running her own bookkeeping practice for over a decade, helping around 70 clients across industries from hospitality to trades. The conversation covers why Xero gives sm...

Lisa-Marie Cabrelli turned corporate expertise into a location-independent eCommerce company in 2006, starting with $500 and a book on building a Yahoo Store, then retiring young when she sold the multi-million dollar business. Lisa-Marie built her eCommerce business through early Google SEO, identifying an underserved niche in American Girl doll accessories. Her background as a corporate business...

Mark Goulston turned 25 years of expertise with suicidal patients into surgical empathy, a listening method deeper than clinical protocol that became his book Just Listen, translated into 28 languages. Mark explains why most people listen to respond rather than to understand, and what changes when you listen for what someone is actually searching for beneath the words. He covers the difference bet...

Karen Wickre worked at Google and Twitter before writing Taking the Work out of Networking, her guide to building genuine connections without transactional pressure. Karen explains why networking does not have to feel like work. Drawing from her Silicon Valley career and her current life as a self-employed corporate editor and writer in her 70s, she shares practical approaches to maintaining loose...

Laetitia Vitaud, French writer, speaker and Future of Work commentator, brings a feminist perspective to professional reinvention and the changing nature of careers. In this conversation, she explains how the old Fordist job contract has unbundled, leaving workers to rebuild security, identity and purpose on their own terms. Laetitia explores the motherhood penalty across countries, from Denmark&a...

Jane Hudson turned a career in Australian Broadway productions into expertise in learning and development, building an independent L&D practice from regional Victoria specialising in regulatory training. Jane shares how the discipline and communication skills from a performing arts career translated into corporate training work, and what prompted her move from organisational employment to runn...

In this 4th Wisepreneurs Podcast episode, I talk with Meredith Fuller, now retired psychologist, author, playwright and career counsellor with over 30 years of experience. We talk about work in light of COVID, careers, and why you might like to explore self-employment or stay where you are. You can learn more about Meredith at https://meredithfuller.com.au/ Support the show Connect with Nigel Rawl...

Anthea Green navigated a career spanning Canberra public service, health sector CEO roles, hospital and aged care governance, and board leadership before founding Women Who Stand Up to help other women reach positions of responsibility. Her path started with studying Buddhism at ANU, fell into student politics, and accelerated when Vice Chancellor Sir John Crawford told her: do not tell me what is...

Meredith Fuller practised as a career counselling psychologist for over 30 years and explains why understanding yourself is the first step toward career independence after 50. Meredith covers the traits that predict whether someone can successfully work for themselves, why past behaviour is the best predictor of future career behaviour, and how to assess your health, stickability, and delayed grat...

Gail Greatorex spent 35 years in the federal public service, including 25 years leading product safety at the ACCC, before launching Product Safety Solutions as an independent consultant in 2012.  In this episode, she shares how she turned deep regulatory expertise into a solo consulting practice covering training, expert witness work, and safety advocacy. Gail explains how she built authority thr...