Episodes

Valentine Gatard has been an employee for only nine months in her entire life. Based in Paris, she works as a coach, speaker, and podcast host, helping companies and independent professionals rethink their relationship with work. Valentine explains how jazz improvisation shapes her approach to coaching, why freelancing and portfolio careers are reshaping professional identity, and how crafting your own work narrative matters more than following conventional career templates.

Andrea Chase, Canadian entrepreneur and founder of True Marketing Verse, shares how she built expertise across psychology, teaching, hospitality, and sales before channelling it into a digital marketing agency serving women-owned businesses and solopreneurs. She covers the mental stamina required to sustain a business over a decade, her approach to PR without a budget, side hustles as a low-risk entry point, and why the psychology of branding matters as much as technical execution. Wisepreneurs explores how independent professionals turn accumulated expertise into sustainable practice.

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. She explains her HEAT system (Human, Expertise, Authority, Trust), the Social Selling Index, and when Sales Navigator is worth the investment. The conversation includes the story of Bob Lovely, who built a six-figure practice using only LinkedIn articles and Gmail. Wisepreneurs explores how independent professionals turn accumulated expertise into sustainable practice.

Amanda Reeves has worked in administrative support for over 40 years, building an independent practice in Melbourne entirely through referrals. She provides executive-level support to solopreneurs and independent consultants, from annual reports and conference materials to websites and social media. Amanda explains how she built a freelance practice without marketing, the practical realities of freelancing after 50, and how one client recommendation led to international work in Switzerland.

Terri Connellan helps experienced women professionals navigate career independence through self-leadership, creativity, and psychological type awareness. After 30 years in TAFE, she trained as a life transition coach, wrote Wholehearted: Self-leadership for Women in Transition, and built an independent practice around creativity and writing. She explains why wholehearted living means designing work around what fulfils you rather than what you are qualified for. Wisepreneurs explores how women over 50 monetise expertise and build sustainable solopreneur practice.

Meredith Fuller OAM about the award-winning documentary, 'Home Truths', which focuses on domestic violence and is co-produced by Lesley Coleman & Rod Winning. Wisepreneurs explores how independent professionals turn accumulated expertise into sustainable practice. Subscribe for new episodes.

Elina Jutelyte explains pricing for freelancers through a first-of-its-kind global study across 13 independent communities. Her survey of 400 freelancers found that 90 per cent find work through personal networks, while only 14 per cent rely on platforms. The conversation covers trending freelancer topics from LinkedIn strategy to AI, plus Elina's ambition to build an MBA-style programme for independent professionals. Wisepreneurs explores how independent professionals turn accumulated expertise into sustainable practice.

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 the 100-year life concept requires fundamentally different planning than traditional three-stage careers — education, work, retirement — and why ongoing education sustains professional relevance far longer than most people expect. His research shows that age discrimination in the workplace is not just unfair but economically irrational: organisations that discard experienced workers discard the pattern recognition and judgment that take decades to build. Wisepreneurs explores how experienced independent professionals position accumulated expertise and build sustainable practice.

Gabrielle Sun explains how AI is reshaping expertise building in corporate learning, from instructional design principles to the tools every knowledge worker should explore. She covers what makes training effective, why alignment between learning goals and practice activities is the foundation of good course design, and four AI capabilities to explore: text generation, text to audio with voice cloning, text to image, and text to video. Wisepreneurs explores how independent professionals turn accumulated expertise into sustainable practice.

Alison Grade wrote The Freelance Bible, published by Penguin, drawing on years as a freelancer and producer in film and TV alongside running her own motorbike training company. She covers the practical mechanics of starting and running a freelance business: pricing, finding clients, managing the feast-famine cycle, and the mindset shifts that separate freelancers who build lasting practices from those who drift between gigs. Her own career path — from creative production to teaching to entrepreneurship — demonstrates that freelance skills are portable across industries, and that the principles of running a sustainable independent practice apply whether you are on a film set or a training course. Wisepreneurs explores how experienced independent professionals position accumulated expertise and build sustainable practice.

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 and why the care economy belongs at the centre of any serious conversation about the future of work. She argues that entrepreneurship among older professional women is quietly reshaping work in ways the statistics do not yet capture, and that humane approaches to work create better outcomes than acceleration and optimisation. The conversation challenges the assumption that more output is always better — and makes the case that experienced professionals are uniquely positioned to model a different way of working. Wisepreneurs explores how experienced independent professionals position accumulated expertise and build sustainable practice.

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 turned business strategist, Salina covers profile optimisation as a sales page, choosing the right content format, strategic commenting to grow reach, and how 15 minutes of focused daily effort builds consistent visibility on the platform.

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. He covers why lifestyle design matters more than revenue targets for older entrepreneurs, how to track spending as the foundation of financial independence, when to outsource rather than learn a new skill, and why self-care and energy management are business strategy rather than indulgence. He co-founded Startup School for Seniors with Suzanne Noble, and the conversation draws on both his coaching practice and the lived experience of building something new when the runway looks different than it did at 30. Wisepreneurs explores how experienced independent professionals position accumulated expertise and build sustainable practice.

Lisa-Marie Cabrelli turned expertise from acting, eCommerce, and a PhD in Creative Writing into a location-independent coaching practice spanning four countries. She shares how story structure informs her Heroine's Adventure course and how ChatGPT became an essential thinking partner for developing course concepts. The conversation covers how AI fluency is becoming essential for career independence and what Lisa-Marie sees coming in the future of independent work. Wisepreneurs explores how women over 50 monetise expertise and build sustainable solopreneur practice.

Lisa Ross-Marcus helps experienced women professionals navigate career transitions and build leadership capability from her Amsterdam executive coaching practice. Her path from performing arts in Paris to executive coaching blends kinaesthetic awareness, artistic creativity, and structured method. Lisa covers discovering a niche market, the practicalities of becoming a coach after a performing arts career, what confidence means when internal dialogue is not cooperating, and why values alignment anchors sustainable independent practice.

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 thousands of other freelancers were going through the same thing with no resources to draw on. That experience became the foundation for the Freelancer Club and its #NoFreeWork campaign against exploitative unpaid work in the creative industries. The conversation covers the practical realities of freelancing — contracts, payment terms, client selection — and how community makes the difference between surviving and building something sustainable. Wisepreneurs explores how experienced independent professionals position accumulated expertise and build sustainable practice.

Krisna Hanks helps women over 60 build metabolic health, strength, and nutrition practices grounded in 33 years as a professional dancer. A certified health coach and LCHF/keto nutrition advisor with an MSc in Kinesiology and MBA, she explains why metabolic health is the foundation of self-care for experienced professional women, why protein intake matters more than most realise, and why strength training is a necessary investment for ageing well. Her career from dance to health coaching shows how finite careers prepare you for professional reinvention.

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, he explains why freelancing is lumpy, how experienced professionals can future-proof their skills, why companies need to adapt to agile talent, and what freelancing looks like as you age. Wisepreneurs explores how independent professionals turn accumulated expertise into sustainable practice.

Suzanne Noble has reinvented her career more times than most people 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 co-founding Startup School for Seniors helping people over 50 start businesses. Each reinvention taught her something different about finding a niche, understanding a customer, and building a sustainable income stream. She covers what transfers across industries and what you have to learn from scratch each time, and why starting a business at 60 is not a retreat from work but a different kind of ambition. Wisepreneurs explores how experienced independent professionals position accumulated expertise and build sustainable practice.

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, she covers why Xero gives small business owners real-time financial visibility, common mistakes including miscoding expenses, and why she tells every new client to set up their business as if they are ready to sell it tomorrow. Wisepreneurs explores how independent professionals turn accumulated expertise into sustainable practice.

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. She built it through early Google SEO, identifying an underserved niche in American Girl doll accessories, drawing on her corporate background as a business systems analyst to develop a process engineering approach for solopreneurs. The conversation also covers her seven published novels, PhD in Literature, and coaching work helping women start location-independent businesses. Wisepreneurs explores how women over 50 monetise expertise and build sustainable solopreneur practice.

Mark Goulston turned 25 years of work with suicidal patients into surgical empathy, a listening method deeper than clinical protocol that became his book Just Listen, translated into 28 languages. He 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. The difference between clinical empathy and surgical empathy is that one acknowledges pain and the other moves someone through it. The conversation covers how the same listening discipline he used with patients in crisis applies directly to coaching, consulting, and any professional relationship where trust is the actual product. Wisepreneurs explores how experienced independent professionals position accumulated expertise and build sustainable practice.

Karen Wickre worked at Google and Twitter before writing Taking the Work out of Networking, her guide to building genuine connections without transactional pressure. She 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-touch relationships that serve personal and professional needs alike. Her framework treats networking as connecting for a whole range of human needs, not just career advancement — and the people who do it best are the ones who do not treat it as a strategy at all. Wisepreneurs explores how experienced independent professionals position accumulated expertise and build sustainable practice.

Laetitia Vitaud, French writer, speaker and Future of Work commentator, brings a feminist perspective to professional reinvention and the changing nature of careers. She explores the motherhood penalty across countries, COVID's "shecession" and its unequal impact on women, and why women over 50 often turn to self-employment. Her advice centres on financial literacy, diverse networks, identity transitions and developing your own career narrative.