portfolio career

Simon Strong’s portfolio career 5 of 6

October 19, 2015 By // by DigitalJenIPC

This is the fifth in a series of 6 blog posts by Simon Strong about his portfolio career. Reading how people have created their own portfolio career can be useful to inspire you to create one yourself.

In case you missed them, here are parts 1, 2, 3 & 4:

Here is part 1:

https://liberateyourtalent.wordpress.com/2015/04/11/simon-strongs-portfolio-career-1/

Here is part 2:

https://liberateyourtalent.wordpress.com/2015/04/16/simon-strongs-portfolio-career-2/

Here is part 3:

https://liberateyourtalent.wordpress.com/2015/05/04/simon-strongs-portfolio-career-3/

Here is part 4:
https://liberateyourtalent.wordpress.com/2015/05/22/simon-strongs-portfolio-career-4/

The rest of this blog is in Simon’s own words.

What do you most love about having a portfolio career?
I’m always busy, stimulated, and being challenged. I find every project provides new insight and perspective on the other projects I have on the go.

What are the challenges of having a portfolio career?
I’ve no idea what I’m doing. I have so many balls in the air that whenever I stop to think I get terrified that I’m forgetting something important. I sometimes want to stop the bus so I can get off and take a moment to do nothing. But then, when I’ve got a moment to myself I have another idea which excites me and off I go again! I’ve got so many things that I want to do. I suppose my main challenge is myself.

I’ve begun to realise how important it is to surround yourself with great people. I couldn’t do this stuff on my own.

Commitment is the most under rated quality in people you want to work with. There are lots of flakes out there who will be happy to jump on the bandwagon once they know that something will be a success. But the really valuable people are the ones who are willing to put effort into something because it’s interesting before they know if it’ll work.

However, you’re the only one who can make it happen. Don’t expect anyone else to go out of their way to help you. It doesn’t matter how good your ideas are (contrary to popular myth, good ideas are really, really, really easy to come by, and you don’t have to be super smart to have them) – it’s your responsibility to make it work. If it fails – it’s your fault, and yours alone.

Who or what helps you to manage your portfolio career?
My wife. I always know when I’ve had a stinker of an idea – she ignores it. She gently nudges me towards the most fertile territories. She dissuades me from my worst excess, and is my number one cheerleader.

And my business partner Adam. We work really well together. We have very complimentary skill sets. We bounce off each other incredibly productively. He shoulders so much of the stuff that I’m not good at and lets me get on with what I am good at. I hope he thinks that I do the stuff he doesn’t like so he can get on with the stuff he’s good at…!

Part 6 of Simon’s 6 part guest blog series coming soon.

View Simon Strong’s LinkedIn profile:
http://https//uk.linkedin.com/in/simonstrong

View the Human Zoo web site:
http://www.humanzoo.biz/

What could your portfolio career be made up of? We help our clients create, market and manage their portfolio career.

Find out what your transferable skills are by downloading our free report:

http://careerstrategies.co.uk/changingcareersreport/

The Food Judge guest blog part 3

August 27, 2015 By // by DigitalJenIPC

This is part 3 of a 3 part guest blog by Nicky Richmond.

Nicky combines being a joint managing partner for Brecher with being a restaurant critic, and is a property and property finance lawyer with over 25 years’ experience. She is The Food Judge and writes a regular column for The Lawyer magazine. As a Foodie myself as you can see from our food themed LLClub web site, I am inspired!

In case you missed them, here are the links to part 1 & 2.

Part 1:
https://liberateyourtalent.wordpress.com/2015/05/16/an-edible-portfolio-career-1/

Part 2
https://liberateyourtalent.wordpress.com/2015/06/04/the-food-judge-nicky-richmond-2/

The rest of this blog are in Nicky’s own words.

Who or what helps you to manage your portfolio career?

No-one helps me to manage my portfolio career, but having a supportive group of partners in my firm who appreciate the good publicity that can come with raising the profile of any individual partner whether by way of restaurant reviews, opinion pieces or being involved with charities.
Not having to go through endless layers of bureaucracy to get my pieces approved is also a help and being an owner of the business means that I have more leeway than lawyers in larger firms where they may not feel entirely comfortable with a lawyer actually having an opinion.

How do you approach marketing your portfolio career?

In terms of law, through the conventional channels, attending industry events and writing in the legal and professional press. For the restaurant side, Twitter has been a great source of networking and contacts.

What if any, is the personal brand used for your portfolio career?

The Food Judge is my brand for the food blog. In general, my approach is straightforward advice with a sense of humour, whether it be legal/restaurant/charity work

What skills/experience/qualities would you say lawyers possess which makes them well suited to having a portfolio career?

Lawyers can work to a deadline, they are task driven, self-motivated, and having an outside life, in my view, makes them better lawyers

What advice would you give to give to someone considering a portfolio career?

Choose to spend your time on something you love and which makes you feel good about yourself

Your top 5 tips about portfolio careers from having one yourself?

1. Don’t be scared of trying something new
2. Put your head above the parapet – it doesn’t matter if it fails
3. Don’t expect instant success
4. Ask for help
5. Believe in yourself

Also – don’t wait until you have been in the law 25 years, like me, try something new. I look back and regret all that time I spent in the office at weekends or until silly hours of the night. There are times when that is unavoidable but if I’m honest with myself, I am allowed the job to take over and if I had had other interests/commitments earlier on, I may not have committed so much time to it and I would have had a more balanced and no doubt more enjoyable life.

Very few law firms will tell you that you are working too hard – you need to decide what is too much and how much you are prepared to give to the day job, they certainly won’t decide for you.

Allow yourself to do something for yourself that you enjoy.

More about Nicky Richmond

Nicky Richmond, Joint Managing Partner, Brecher:
http://www.brecher.co.uk/people/nicky-richmond/

The Food Judge – never knowingly underfed.
http://thefoodjudge.com/

Blog – Not Entirely Legal
http://strictlylegal.me/author/nickyrichmond/

More about portfolio careers:

Could a portfolio career give you the variety you seek? Download our free report ‘Discover Portfolio Careers’ and find out:
http://www.llclub.org/discover-portfolio-careers/

The Food Judge – Nicky Richmond #2

June 4, 2015 By // by DigitalJenIPC

This is part 2 of a 3 part guest blog by Nicky Richmond. Nicky combines being a joint managing partner for Brecher with being a restaurant critic, and is a property and property finance lawyer with over 25 years’ experience. She is The Food Judge and writes a regular column for The Lawyer magazine. As a Foodie myself as you can see from our food themed LLClub web site, I am inspired!

Here is part 1:
https://liberateyourtalent.wordpress.com/2015/05/16/an-edible-portfolio-career-1/

The rest of this blog are in Nicky’s own words.

When people ask you ‘what do you do?’ – what do you reply?

My day job is a lawyer but what I really love to do is to review restaurants.

To what extent did your portfolio career happen by chance/luck and to what extent was it planned?

My portfolio career was not planned at all and I fell into it and only realised how much it gave me once I have been doing it for quite some time. Doing the reviews didn’t feel like work and it was easy to combine it with my work life as whilst I will never willingly attend a sporting event, I will happily take a client to a food event and I have to do client entertaining as part of my business.

What do you most love about having a portfolio career?

Finally managing to incorporate my obsession with food into my day-to-day life other than just by way of eating it. Meeting a whole new group of people and getting to understand another industry, which has been fascinating. Feeling that I’m using all parts of my skill set and that there is still a lot to learn. Getting stale is so dull.

What are the challenges of having a portfolio career?

Realising that you can’t do everything that you want to do because there are not enough hours in the day. You have to really plan and be disciplined about the time you spend on each thing that you do and you have to be equally committed to the non-core aspects of your portfolio career.
The temptation with law is to let it take over – I certainly did for the first 25 years and I ended up being tired, and a little bit jaded. Doing the charity work is good for the soul however much of a cliché that might appear, and the upside is that you get to meet a whole new group of people from different walks of life. The sort of people who volunteer are the sort of people that I really like to spend time with.

Part 3 of this 3 part guest blog coming soon.

More about Nicky Richmond

Nicky Richmond, Joint Managing Partner, Brecher:
http://www.brecher.co.uk/people/nicky-richmond/

The Food Judge – never knowingly underfed.
http://thefoodjudge.com/

Blog – Not Entirely Legal
http://strictlylegal.me/author/nickyrichmond/

More about portfolio careers:

Could a portfolio career give you the variety you seek? Download our free report ‘Discover Portfolio Careers’ and find out:
http://www.llclub.org/discover-portfolio-careers/

Interested in finding out more about whether a portfolio career is to your taste? Come along to The Law Society Portfolio careers event on Friday 12 June. See link for more details:
https://events.lawsociety.org.uk/ClientApps/Silverbear.Web.EDMS/public/default.aspx?tabId=37&id=1077&orgId=1&guid=eb63cc9e-13ed-45c4-8b66-4b52db7a0c94

Funke Abimbola guest blog #1

May 29, 2015 By // by DigitalJenIPC

This is part 1 of a 2 part guest blog by Funke Abimbola, Managing Counsel, Roche Products Ltd. UK & Ireland.

Funke is a practising solicitor and currently Managing Counsel at Roche UK, leading the legal team supporting Roche’s pharmaceutical operations in the UK, Ireland, Malta and Gibraltar. She is also Data Protection Officer for the UK. Her career began in private practice before moving in-house. Funke undertakes a lot of work to support diversity & inclusion in society as a whole and within the legal profession in particular. An award winning lawyer and diversity champion, she was most recently a finalist for ‘Diversity Champion of the Year’ at the inaugural 2015 Excellence in Diversity Awards and won the ‘Career Woman of the Year’ award at the 2015 Women4Africa awards.

What are the components of your portfolio career e.g. study, paid freelance work, part time job, volunteering etc.)?

I have a full time job as a lawyer leading the UK & Ireland legal team for a large pharmaceutical company. In addition, I hold a number of voluntary roles within diversity and education. I am also a regular speaker at various conferences and to students both at school and at University.

How did your portfolio career come about?

My portfolio career came about out of a genuine desire to make a positive difference within the legal community and my local community. I was particularly frustrated by the ongoing diversity issues in the legal profession and once I realised that I was in a position to make a positive impact in this area, I decided to devote more and more of my spare time to diversity initiatives.

How has your portfolio career changed over time?

Because of the limitations on my spare time (I am a working mother), I have had to re-prioritise this year. For example, this meant resigning as a school governor simply because I did not have enough time to do that together with other schools-related work and my diversity work and speaking engagements.

When people ask you ‘what do you do?’ – what do you reply?

I tell them that I wear many hats! I often reply by saying I am a lawyer, leader, diversity champion, mentor and very proud mother.

To what extent did your portfolio career happen by chance/luck and to what extent was it planned?

It certainly was not planned but came about by chance as various opportunities to make impactful changes came up. I was approached about specific diversity initiatives, for example, and things have snowballed from there. Also, the school governor role came about due to a genuine need to get involved in the school’s development at the time.

What do you most love about having a portfolio career?

The ability to meet people that I would not have met otherwise; also the chance to broaden my experiences and change my perspective. I have been able to apply some of the new skills learnt from my voluntary work into my work as a lawyer/leader and this has made the experience all the more rewarding.

This was the first part of a two part guest blog by Funke Abimbola for Energise LLClub.

Follow Funke Abimbola on Twitter:
https://twitter.com/diversitychamp1

Are you a woman lawyer interested in a portfolio career? Download your free LLClub report ‘Discover Portfolio Careers’:
http://www.llclub.org/discover-portfolio-careers/

To book your place at the Law Society Women Lawyers Division Portfolio Careers event on 12 June, click on this link:
https://events.lawsociety.org.uk/ClientApps/Silverbear.Web.EDMS/public/default.aspx?tabid=37&id=1077&orgId=1&guid=45fb5b5b-61ae-421d-84e4-3ccb65a5c20b

Funke moved from private practice to an in-house role. Did you know that The Law Society (all divisions) are having a Changing career direction event on 20 October (evening)? Save the date. See link for details:
https://events.lawsociety.org.uk/ClientApps/Silverbear.Web.EDMS/public/default.aspx?tabId=37&id=1092&orgId=1&guid=f18e5ce0-e39c-4e5d-9f6a-4915fa3c27fc

Simon Strong’s portfolio career #4

May 22, 2015 By // by DigitalJenIPC

This is the fourth in a series of 6 blog posts by Simon Strong about his portfolio career.

Reading how people have created their own portfolio career can be useful to inspire you to create one yourself.

In case you missed them, here are parts 1, 2 & 3

Here is part 1:

https://liberateyourtalent.wordpress.com/2015/04/11/simon-strongs-portfolio-career-1/

Here is part 2:

Post on LLClub

https://liberateyourtalent.wordpress.com/2015/04/16/simon-strongs-portfolio-career-2/

Here is part 3:

https://liberateyourtalent.wordpress.com/2015/05/04/simon-strongs-portfolio-career-3/

The rest of this blog is in Simon’s own words.

To what extent did your portfolio career happen by chance/luck and to what extent was it planned?

Utterly by chance. But in retrospect, it seems totally planned. I was chatting to my mum and dad the other day, and they commented that they always knew I wouldn’t take an obvious route through life. They’ve never been able to predict what I would say or think on any subject on any given day! I’m contrary by nature and have an eclectic approach to my interests.

But I wonder what it must have been like to be the first lawyer. There must have been one. How would he have described himself at ancient networking events?! And even if you have a job title that people recognise, why should it define you? I remember meeting a marketing director (have you already got a picture of her – the archetype of a marketing director…?) who started her career as a wing walker in the Cadbury’s Chocolate Crunchie Flying Circus… Now then – what do you think of her as a marketing director? Or my first boss who was hard as nails – but who’d started her career as an underwear model for Lady magazine (you know that old trick of imagining people who make you nervous are in their underwear – that just made me more nervous with her!).

I’ve found that people really like to have you ‘in a box’. If I ever work with a client, they tend to think that whatever I did for them is the only thing I can do. They are surprised when I tell them all the other things I get up to. This sometimes leads to a perception that I must therefore do these things part time and therefore not as well as someone who does only the one thing. I think the diversity of my perspective makes me a more rounded thinker who brings more to each project and therefore makes me better…!

I remember I bumped into a couple of guys who were a couple of years below me at school. They were shocked that I worked at Saatchi & Saatchi at the time. ‘But you’re a meathead’ they said. Because I played rugby (I was a prop at school and played under 18 county level, before moving to the back row – and captained the English Advertising Agencies) they had me pegged as ‘an unthinking lump’. They couldn’t conceive of me as someone who had a rich intellectual life.

I think my own path has given me an appreciation of the diversity and possibility in the lives of others. I’m constantly fascinated by the incredible potential hidden within people– the kitchen porter who is learning German so he can study architecture in Berlin – the research chemist who teaches Zumba – the cashier in a Coop corner shop who brews honey mead – the learned academic who rocks a comedy set… And to see how these interests shape life. The kitchen porter is studying fine arts in parallel to his German and temp work so that he has the qualifications and skills to make the most of his studies in Germany, the chemist is now a full time fitness instructor after the pharma company closed down her research lab, the cashier now works at the best pub in the area (which also sells his honey mead), and the academic has a public speaking life opening up and is increasingly in demand for media appearances.

So I think that our lives follow the shape of our interests. And I guess it’s no accident that I have a portfolio career!

Part 5 of Simon’s 6 part guest blog series coming soon.

View Simon Strong’s LinkedIn profile:
http://https//uk.linkedin.com/in/simonstrong

View the Human Zoo web site:
http://www.humanzoo.biz/

What could your portfolio career be made up of? We help our clients create, market and manage their portfolio career.

Find out what your transferable skills are by downloading our free report:
http://careerstrategies.co.uk/changingcareersreport/

Simon Strong’s portfolio career #3

May 4, 2015 By // by DigitalJenIPC

This is the third in a series of 6 blog posts by Simon Strong about his portfolio career. Reading how people have created their own portfolio career can be useful to inspire you to create one yourself.

In case you missed them, here is part 1:

https://liberateyourtalent.wordpress.com/2015/04/11/simon-strongs-portfolio-career-1/

Here is part 2:

https://liberateyourtalent.wordpress.com/2015/04/16/simon-strongs-portfolio-career-2/

The rest of this blog is in Simon’s own words.

How did your portfolio career come about?

It certainly wasn’t intentional. In part it came about because I find it hard to say no. In part because I’m always having daft ideas (my outdoor cinema for the football world cup was an unmitigated disaster!). And partly because I started to give myself permission to do things if I thought they were interesting.

How has your portfolio career changed over time?

It started with a business focus underpinned by the arts. I left advertising and got involved in using improvisational comedy as a tool to facilitate creativity, professional development, culture change, and branding workshops. I discovered there was this world of amazing people who did extraordinary business work: horse whisperers who did leadership development, a poker player who taught risk assessment and decision making, a Tai Chi master who taught negotiation skills etc.

For a short time I drifted away from a business focus to a more arts based interest with a business underpinning, partly due to the impact of the recession when the budgets dried up and companies found it difficult to justify working with someone like me!

I have now come back towards the business world and seem to be finding a way to combine my interests in really productive ways. I feel creatively potent and productive at the moment.

When people ask you ‘what do you do?’ – what do you reply?

Ummmmm…

My mum is really happy about the coffee shop – it means that she actually has an answer! But it is something that I have struggled with and angst over. Probably unnecessarily. It has been especially difficult at networking events when I think I should have something smart and concise to say.

Really, it depends who asks. Sometimes I say I am a barista or that I run a coffee shop or cafe. Other times I say I run a creative consultancy. Mostly I laugh and say I do stuff, for people, for reasons!

Part 4 of Simon’s 6 part guest blog series coming soon.

View Simon Strong’s LinkedIn profile:
http://https//uk.linkedin.com/in/simonstrong

View the Human Zoo web site:
http://www.humanzoo.biz/

What could your portfolio career be made up of? Find out what your transferable skills are by downloading our free report:
http://careerstrategies.co.uk/changingcareersreport/

Simon Strong’s portfolio career #2

April 16, 2015 By // by DigitalJenIPC

This is the second in a series of 6 blog posts by Simon Strong about his portfolio career. Reading how people have created their own portfolio career can be useful to inspire you to create one yourself.

In case you missed it, here is part 1:
http://liberateyourtalent.wordpress.com/wp-admin/post-new.php

The rest of this blog is in Simon’s own words.

How have some of the projects in your portfolio career come about?

Engaging students in learning

A couple of years ago, an ex-colleague from advertising days contacted me. She’d started teaching German at Radley College (boys public school just outside Oxford) and was intrigued as to how we could do something creative with her students. So for the last couple of years we have run the Radley Business Challenge in which we give the students a real business issue (Stabilo pens in the inaugural year and the German National Tourist Board last year) so that the students have to learn about German culture in order to create a marketing campaign. Last year another 6 schools took part in the challenge and I got the former Head of Sales and Marketing for Diesel UK and former Brand Communications Director of Orange Mobile to run workshops. Last year, for the first time, all her ‘A’ Level German students got A*, and more students have signed up for German than ever before. This year we hope to get extend the project to even more schools.

Coffee shop

My wife commutes to London every day for her job (CSO at ad agency Ogilvy and Mather) and she wanted a decent coffee on the train. So, because I love her, I opened a coffee shop at our local train station. The Zoo Café at Milford Train Station opened just over 6 months ago, and it’s just doubled in size when I took on my first member of staff three weeks ago. We serve 100’s of cups of awesome every day with clients including Lord Seb Coe and my very happy wife. I plan to develop a deli for commuters to pick up their evening meal on the way home, and also offer a dry cleaning service so they can drop off on the way in and pick up and the way back out. I’ve also go permission to set up a semi-permanent photographic exhibition on the platform, and I also want to run a pop-up restaurant out of the café (I’m in contact with Kerstin Rodgers of the Underground Supper Club who I met at a KFC workshop a couple of years ago who I hope to entice to cook at the café).

River of lights

A couple of years ago I organised an event in Guildford I called River Of Lights. It was inspired by a memory I had as a child of watching an event on TV (probably John Craven’s Newsround!) where tens of thousands of candles were thrown off a bridge like a waterfall, and which then floated down a river. In 2010, and again in 2011, I invited the community around Guildford to celebrate the winter solstice by floating candles on the River Wey. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uvdBbMqy6NQ

It got flooded off in both 2012 and 2013, and last year I took a break. Next year I am planning to do it in the village of Witley where I live.

Other projects

I chaired the PTA for our local infant school where my two boys went (Lucas is still there). Although I stepped down almost 2 years ago, I still run the annual fireworks event that I initiated, as well as dad’s poker night!

There are lots of other projects that are simmering in the background (a community energy project, Shakespeare in the park, something to do with pants, a Quidditch tournament, “hats for cars”, and I have a strange desire to direct ‘Waiting For Godot’…). And I’m sure other stuff will crop up…

Part 3 of Simon’s 6 part guest blog series coming soon.

View Simon Strong’s LinkedIn profile:
http://https//uk.linkedin.com/in/simonstrong

View the Human Zoo web site:
http://www.humanzoo.biz/

What could your portfolio career be made up of? Find out what your transferable skills are by downloading our free report:
http://careerstrategies.co.uk/changingcareersreport/

Simon Strong’s portfolio career #1

April 11, 2015 By // by DigitalJenIPC

This is the first in a series of 6 blog posts by Simon Strong about his portfolio career.

Reading how people have created their own portfolio career can be useful to inspire you to create one yourself.

The rest of this blog is in Simon’s own words.

What are the components of your portfolio career e.g. study, paid freelance work, part time job, volunteering etc.?

I don’t really have components as such. More a load of stuff that I’m doing. Some I get paid for. Some I invest in. Some is just because I want to. Interestingly, it’s often the stuff I do just because I want to that leads to the most satisfying and lucrative work opportunities. Probably the easiest thing to do is tell you what I’ve been doing recently and what I’m up to now.

I ran Pecha Kucha Night in Guildford for a couple of years which allowed me to connect with so many amazing creative people and their stories. This led to being asked by Ellen Dowell (who runs Einstein’s Garden at the Green Man Festival, and whose academic work is based on interdisciplinary collaboration) to help set up Bright Club Guildford – where University Academics do stand-up comedy based on their research. Ellen and I ran Bright Club for 3 years before we stepped down in January this year. We have handed over to a fresh committee who we hope will be able to take it on to the next level.

I run a creative consultancy, Human Zoo, named after a book by the amazing Desmond Morris with whom I had the great honour of working when in advertising. We work with our clients across a broad range of projects including branding, innovation and culture change, running lots of seminars and facilitating workshops and conferences. We act as Ambassadors for the University of Surrey Business School and are involved in delivering seminars on their MBA and executive MBA programmes. I’m currently consulting with a global print company and am about to go out to Dubai to run a conference.

Last year my business partner in Human Zoo and I got bored of expending so much energy on client projects that went nowhere, so we decided to start investing time in our own innovation projects. We’ve got three projects currently underway:

1) We won a funding competition from the Technology Strategy Board (now Innovate UK) under ‘Re-Imagining The High Street’ for a feasibility study on an innovation we developed and we’ve just been asked to apply for phase 2 funding for a market test which we are just about to submit.

2) We are working on developing an accelerated learning platform which has been proven to deliver the same learning outcomes as 27 hours of traditional classroom based learning in just 1 hour. We are working with the University of Surrey Business School to run a learning tournament to compare different learning techniques in one of the largest studies of its kind – and we are engaging the top 1,000 businesses in the UK on how this will impact on engaging Gen Y and creating ‘Business Ready Brains’.

3) We are working with one of the University MBA students to take a charity start-up idea to market. We are about to go into a funding round…

Part 2 of Simon’s 6 part guest blog series coming soon.

View Simon Strong’s LinkedIn profile:
http://https//uk.linkedin.com/in/simonstrong

View the Human Zoo web site:
http://www.humanzoo.biz/

What could your portfolio career be made up of?
Find out what your transferable skills are by downloading our free report:
http://careerstrategies.co.uk/changingcareersreport/

Guest blog: Nigel Haddon – creating my portfolio career

April 4, 2015 By // by DigitalJenIPC

A portfolio career which is where an individual has multiple works strands, is a fast growing trend, with the majority of people predicted to have one by 2020. (Source: Professor Lynda Gratton, London Business School). I help professionals and executives to create, manage and market their portfolio career and sharing current portfolio careerists’ stories in their own words is a great way to inform and inspire aspiring portfolio careerists. Could you be one of them?

This is the first in a series of three guest blogs by Nigel Haddon about his portfolio career – this blog is about how he created his portfolio career. The second two guest blogs by Nigel will be about how he manages and markets his portfolio career.

The rest of this blog is in Nigel’s own words.

The start of my career

I qualified as a solicitor back in 1981. Then, it wasn’t unusual to be a generalist, a ‘jack of all trades’, and that was my first career in the law, working out of a market town in Cheshire. Specialism caught up with me eventually, and I became a Family lawyer. It’s too long a story to go into here, but by the turn of the millennium I’d morphed into a Construction lawyer!

In the mid 2000’s, the opportunity came my way to assume the role of Managing Partner at the firm – I’d been with since 1995. I took the firm through a merger in 2006, and became Managing Partner and later CEO of that firm. Leading over a hundred people across a number of sites and through the worst recession of our lifetimes was no ‘walk in the park’, and one of the first things to suffer was my legal practice – which I gave up in 2008 to concentrate on my leadership and management roles. My fourth career in the law was under way, and it was one which I knew full well would end at some point with me probably either unable or unwilling to revert to practising as a solicitor.

Career crossroads

So when the end of my time as a law firm CEO came, what next? Well, like so many people, I initially sought out the comfort blanket of the familiar. I talked to a number of law firms and other businesses about CEO and other leadership roles. That talking process went on for several months, involving some interesting challenges and potential opportunities. But nagging away at me was this question, do I really want to do that again? Being CEO had been in many ways the most rewarding of all the positions I’d held, but it was also at times the most difficult and frustrating. And that’s saying nothing about the relentless, 24/7 nature of the job, that sense of being permanently responsible.
My present portfolio career really came about by accident. As months went by, I had to do something to ‘earn a crust’.

Deciding what next

I began to discuss with my contacts in the law how I might be able to use my experience to their benefit. I launched a management consultancy for the legal sector which is now my principal occupation. My experiences of and interest in law firm mergers then led to the formation of Mosaic Legal, a joint venture with a Chartered Accountant to help professional services firms acquire or be acquired by other firms. And then my experiences of and keen interest in pricing for lawyers led to my teaming up with the UK’s leading Pricing & Costs consultancy Burcher Jennings to deliver pricing training to law firms.

Transferable skills give options

Many former law firm Managing Partners try their hands at consultancy, but most will have more to offer than that. They have transferable skills which are valuable not just to law firms but other professional service firms and indeed former client businesses. I am also an executive committee member of the Law Management section of The Law Society and a chartered arbitrator.

The pros of my portfolio career

My fifth career is the most varied since my first general practice role. Variety is without doubt the principal joy in having a portfolio career. There is a profound sense of liberation to be enjoyed from the lifting of the burden of full time management responsibility. And you’ll have time for other pursuits, e.g. family, friends, hobbies or trying new things. I’ve managed to re-engage with a voluntary role which had become a chore but is now a pleasure once more. And I’ve gone back to school, where I test the teacher’s patience with my terrible attempts at Latin & ballroom dance!

Guest blogs parts 2 & 3

I will look at the challenges of managing and marketing a portfolio career in later blogs. For now, when I’m asked what I do, I reply that I wear a number of hats, and then sit my interlocutor down for a cosy chat…

Contact Nigel Haddon

Nigel Haddon, Management Consultant, Haddon Consult
http://haddonconsult.co.uk/

Follow Nigel at Haddon Consult on Twitter:
https://twitter.com/haddonconsult

Nigel Haddon, Principal, Mosaic Legal
http://www.mosaicma.co.uk/

For insights and news on M&A, follow Mosaic Legal on Twitter:
https://twitter.com/mosaic_ma

Pricing & costing Consultant, Burcher Jennings
http://www.burcherjennings.com/people/n/

For insights and tips on pricing & costing issues, follow Burcher Jennings on Twitter:
https://twitter.com/burcherjennings

Portfolio careerist – Jonathan Green #2

March 13, 2015 By // by DigitalJenIPC

This is part 2 of a 2 part blog by one of our clients – Jonathan Green. We coached Jon to create his second career – a portfolio career. The rest of this blog is in Jon’s own words.

To read the first part, please click on this link:
https://liberateyourtalent.wordpress.com/2015/03/12/portfolio-careerist-jonathan-green/

Time out for reflection

In 2010 I had a year-long sabbatical, six months of which were spent in the Outer Hebrides where I spent time writing my first book and working on songs in my recording studio. We then moved back to the mainland to have our second child. By this time I was growing as a recording artist and author but we also needed to get a regular income as publishing wasn’t paying yet – partly because I gave my music away for free! Looking back now, I don’t think that I valued my craft enough and that was something I had to confront and work through.

New beginnings – my portfolio career

I found a job working for the Methodist Church nationally to develop chaplaincy, a role that required someone who could start things from scratch. The role involved me speaking, travelling, writing a lot of material, including a course which has been published and used all over the world. The job also required us to move twice. However, in the midst of the demands of that role I managed to set clear boundaries around the time that I gave to the work, a discipline that coaching helped to develop in me. This allowed me to continue to record and release music and write. I was feeling really good about the balance between my church work, music and writing – everything was finding space, including my family, by this point my wife and I had three children under the age of five.

Career crossroads

Eventually, last summer I was made redundant, the Chaplaincy Development Project finally ran out of money. On the one hand, being made redundant was hard, because there was still so much work to do. However, on the other hand it was tremendously liberating. I felt like I had been given the gift of space and I really believed that I shouldn’t rush to find a new job. I realised that this was the perfect opportunity to jump with both feet into a portfolio style of work. My wife was offered a great job which meant that I didn’t have to find a full time paid job. I was approached by a national organisation to develop something from scratch… it was for two days a week, was home based and time limited. PERFECT! For me this was also a profound personal statement – for the first time in my life I can genuinely say that I write music for most of the time and work for the church part time. I have given myself permission to not make “working for the church” the main thing – and you know what? The world hasn’t stopped turning!

Money from music

My wife said to me recently, that if I treat music like a business then it will pay like a business. So that is what I have done. I released my first commercial single in January 2015 and I am currently working on an EP scheduled for the summer. I also have two albums in development for 2016. It has taken me eight years to get to this point, but I feel that the songwriter in me has been truly liberated and more importantly, I feel like I am being true to myself.
I am super excited about arriving at this point in my journey. So much of the thinking and insights about who I truly am: my values, priorities and vision for my life stems from the coaching I received all those years ago. I also picked up and learnt to work with a number of tools that helped me get here! Coaching has been so valuable and was worth every penny and I apply the insights to everything I do.

You can listen to lots of my music over at www.soundcloud.com/recreativemedia for free and you can buy my first Single – Rest in My Love from every online store and streaming service in the world! I live on Twitter @recre8ivemedia