The Journey Back: Reinvention, Resilience & Leading with Purpose

You’ve moved across food manufacturing, entrepreneurship, technology, and now Defence. When you look back, what connects those chapters?

On paper, they probably look like very different chapters. But to me, there is a clear thread running through them: solving difficult problems, bringing people together and turning complexity into something practical.

Food manufacturing taught me pace, operational discipline and how to lead in environments where decisions have immediate consequences. Running my own business taught me accountability – when it is your business, there is nowhere to hide and nobody else to blame. Technology taught me to be comfortable with constant change.

Defence brought those experiences together, but with a very different sense of purpose. The environment changed, but the fundamentals didn’t: understand the problem, build the right relationships and focus people on what actually needs to be achieved.

Perhaps the real thread through my career is that I’ve become increasingly comfortable walking into situations where nobody quite agrees what the problem is yet and helping them build enough clarity to act.

Was there a point when you realised your career wasn’t going to follow a straight line?

I don’t think there was one dramatic moment. It was more a gradual realisation that a career doesn’t have to be linear to be successful. Each move has added another lens through which I can understand people, organisations and complex problems.

Some of the biggest changes in my career weren’t planned years in advance. They came from being willing to ask, “What else could I do with what I’ve learned?”

That became particularly important after my career break. I could have viewed that period as having fallen behind. Instead, I gradually came to see it as another chapter that had changed both what I could bring to work and what I wanted from it.

I’ve become much less interested in whether a career makes perfect sense on paper. I’m more interested in whether you’re still learning, still contributing and still willing to move towards something that matters to you.

You’ve talked before about reinvention. Why has that idea become so important to you?

Because I didn’t want my past experience to become a ceiling on my future.

I remember looking at the roles being suggested to me and thinking, “Why are they all in food?” There was an obvious reason: I’d spent years building experience in that sector, so that was the lens through which people saw me. But I didn’t want the first half of my career to dictate the second.

I made a deliberate decision to disrupt that pattern. I completed an MBA and moved into a completely different industry. That experience taught me something quite liberating: the sector had changed, but I hadn’t suddenly lost my ability to solve problems, influence people or lead through uncertainty.

That gave me the confidence to reinvent myself again later and move into Defence.

Sometimes we need to stop asking, “Where does my CV say I belong?” and start asking, “Where could these skills actually be useful?”

Returning to the workplace after a career break can come with a loss of confidence, even when the capability hasn’t gone anywhere. What was that experience like for you?

Harder than I expected.

I had a strong career behind me and had run my own business, but after a long career break, I experienced rejection in a way I hadn’t before. After repeated rejection, I began to question whether my experience still counted, and imposter syndrome became very real.

Women Returners was a turning point. It gave me practical support, but more importantly it helped me separate two things I’d started to confuse: being out of the workplace and being incapable. They are not the same thing.

My confidence came back gradually – through conversations, applications, interviews and eventually returning to work. That experience has stayed with me because it taught me that confidence can disappear much faster than capability.

Sometimes you simply need the opportunity to prove to yourself that the capability was there all along.

What would you say to someone who feels they need to apologise for a gap on their CV?

Don’t apologise for it. Explain it, own it, but don’t automatically treat it as a deficit.

During my own career break I was raising a family, managing competing demands, solving problems, making decisions and constantly adapting. I wasn’t collecting job titles, but I certainly wasn’t standing still.

The more useful question is: what did that period teach you? Perhaps it gave you resilience, perspective, or made you better at prioritising, negotiating or dealing with uncertainty.

You don’t need to pretend the gap didn’t happen. It’s part of your story. Describe what you did during the period, what you learned and how those capabilities are relevant to the role you want now.

Which skills transferred most naturally into Defence, and which ones surprised you?

The obvious ones were problem-solving, stakeholder management and being comfortable with ambiguity. The one that surprised me was benefits realisation.

Earlier in my career, particularly in commercial environments, you’re constantly asking: What problem are we actually trying to solve? Can we quantify the benefit? And, put simply, is the juice really worth the squeeze?

I’ve found that mindset incredibly useful in Defence. A project can sound impressive, but if we can’t explain what will genuinely change as a result — operationally, financially or for the end user – then we should be prepared to challenge it.

It has also influenced how I think about cost. The cheapest option on paper isn’t necessarily the best value when you consider lifecycle cost, resilience and operational outcomes.

That’s probably one of the strongest things I’ve carried across sectors: a tendency to keep bringing the conversation back to the same question – What are we actually trying to achieve, and will this genuinely get us there?

How does the patient perspective influence the way you think about medical supply chains?

It gives everything a human endpoint.

In a complex supply chain, it’s easy to become absorbed in processes, stock levels, procurement, contracts and systems. All of those things matter enormously, but ultimately there is a person at the end of that chain who needs something.

That changes the way I think about decisions. When you’re talking about a medical product, you’re not simply moving an item from A to B. You’re helping to make sure the right product is available, in the right condition, at the moment somebody needs it.

For me, keeping sight of that helps cut through some of the complexity.

The process matters, but the process isn’t the purpose.

What do people outside Defence misunderstand about the complexity of supplying medical products?

Probably the sheer number of things that have to go right at the same time.

From the outside, the process might appear relatively straightforward: buy the product, store it and send it where it is needed. The reality is much more complex.

There are regulatory requirements, shelf life, storage conditions, cold-chain considerations, demand uncertainty, procurement routes, stockpiles and the need to maintain readiness for situations you can’t necessarily predict. I’ve seen the importance of that responsiveness first-hand, including support to urgent health requirements ( Like the response to Hantavirus) where the system has had to move quickly to get medical aid where it was needed.

What makes it particularly interesting is the tension between different priorities. We need resilience and readiness, but we also have a responsibility to minimise unnecessary waste and demonstrate value for money.

You’re rarely optimising for one neat outcome. You’re balancing readiness, risk, cost and need – and the balance can change very quickly.

You work across Defence, industry, clinicians, and commercial teams. What makes collaboration real rather than just something organisations say they value?

For me, collaboration becomes real when people are willing to share the problem, not just attend the meeting.

You can have ten organisations represented around a table and still not actually be collaborating. The difference is whether people understand what everyone else is trying to achieve, where the constraints are and what each person genuinely needs from the others.

I’ve found that apparent disagreement often looks quite different once you understand the pressure sitting on the other side of the table. One practical way we create that understanding is through active learning events, where we bring together the right stakeholders to examine a problem collectively. We use data and evidence to shape and test the problem statement, rather than allowing assumptions or organisational perspectives to define it. That gives people a shared factual starting point, helps surface constraints and dependencies, and creates the conditions for a more constructive discussion about what needs to change.

Once people can see the same problem, you have a much better chance of solving it together.

Your Women in Defence Awards nomination highlighted collaboration. What have you learned about getting people to work together when priorities compete?

I’ve learned that getting people to work together when priorities compete starts with accepting that those priorities are often legitimate. Different teams may be accountable for cost, pace, risk, operational readiness or the needs of the end user, and collaboration will not work if we dismiss any of those pressures.

My approach is to make the competing priorities explicit. I ask what is non-negotiable for each party, where there is flexibility and what outcome we all need to protect. That helps move the discussion away from defending positions and towards understanding the trade-offs.

Data and evidence are important because they give people a common basis for that conversation. They help us distinguish genuine constraints from assumptions, understand the consequences of different choices and identify where compromise is possible.

From there, the aim is not to force complete agreement. It is to identify where interests align, be honest about where they do not, and agree a practical way forward – whether that is a compromise, a phased approach or a clearer allocation of risk and responsibility.

The biggest lesson for me is to stay curious rather than become frustrated. Once people feel that their pressures have been heard and understood, they are much more willing to consider the wider system and what they can contribute to the shared outcome. Collaboration is not about removing competing priorities; it is about creating enough trust and clarity to manage them together.

Do organisations sometimes talk about collaboration while still rewarding people for protecting their own patch?

I think that tension can absolutely exist.

You can tell people to collaborate, but if every incentive, target and accountability points them back towards protecting their own area, you shouldn’t be surprised when that’s what happens.

That’s why collaboration has to be more than a value written on a wall. Leaders need to align objectives, governance and recognition with the shared outcome, rather than expecting goodwill alone to overcome competing accountabilities.

I’ve also learned not to assume that territorial behaviour is necessarily about ego. Sometimes people are protecting something because they’re accountable for it.

The more interesting leadership question is: how do we respect those accountabilities while helping people see the whole system, not just their part of it?

How has entrepreneurship shaped the way you operate inside a large organisation like Defence?

Running your own business is a very good cure for thinking somebody else will sort the problem out.

If something goes wrong, it’s yours. If the customer isn’t happy, it’s yours. If the numbers don’t work, that’s yours too. It gave me a strong bias towards ownership.

I don’t particularly enjoy watching a problem bounce between people’s inboxes because nobody technically owns it. My instinct is usually to ask: what can we actually do to move this forward?

But entrepreneurship also taught me that you can’t do everything yourself. You need people with different strengths, and you need to trust them.

So, I’ve probably carried two things from that experience into Defence: take responsibility quickly, but don’t assume you have to solve everything alone.

What should leaders look for when they are trying to identify talent in people with unconventional career paths?

I’d look beyond the chronology of the CV.

A conventional career path makes certain things very easy to recognise. You can see the progression and the job titles and understand where somebody fits. With a less conventional career, you sometimes have to look a little harder.

I’d be asking: What problems has this person solved? How have they adapted? What have they learned from changing environments? How do they respond when they don’t know the answer? Scenario based interviewing is one practical selection method.

People who have moved across industries or returned after career breaks can bring a breadth of perspective that isn’t always immediately visible on paper.

Sometimes the person who doesn’t look like the obvious fit is bringing exactly the perspective you don’t already have. I think leaders can miss talent when they confuse “familiar” with “capable”.

What assumptions do organisations still make about people returning after a long career break?

One of the biggest is that time away automatically means skills have somehow expired.

Some technical knowledge may need refreshing, of course. That’s perfectly reasonable. But judgement, resilience, communication, leadership and perspective don’t simply disappear because someone hasn’t had a job title for a few years.

Another assumption is that returners necessarily need to come back at a much lower level to prove themselves again. Sometimes that may be appropriate; sometimes it isn’t.

I’d much rather organisations asked, “What can this person do now?” than, “How long have they been away?”

Those are very different questions.

Organisations should separate the skills that genuinely need refreshing from the capabilities that remain intact and then provide appropriate onboarding rather than assuming the individual must restart at the bottom.

How can organisations better recognise skills developed outside formal employment?

First, by actually asking about them.

We tend to give enormous weight to skills acquired inside an organisation and much less weight to exactly the same skills developed elsewhere. Yet life outside formal employment can require extraordinary amounts of negotiation, prioritisation, resilience, organisation and judgement.

The challenge for returners is learning to translate those experiences into language employers recognise. Employers have a role too: they need to be curious enough to look beyond job titles and dates. Structured interviews should be used to ask candidates to demonstrate skills using examples from any part of their experience, not only paid employment.

A career break may pause your job title, but it doesn’t necessarily pause your development.

What’s the hardest leadership lesson you’ve had to learn?

Probably that being responsible for something doesn’t mean I have to carry all of it myself.

Earlier in my career, I sometimes confused accountability with having to have all the answers. Over time, I’ve learned that leadership is often much more about creating the conditions for other people to do their best work.

That means giving people clarity and room to operate, being there when they need support, and resisting the temptation to jump in simply because you can.

I’m still accountable for the outcome. I’ve just learned that I don’t need to be the hero of every part of it.

That was an important shift for me, and it made me a better leader.

What does psychological safety look like in practice, especially in high-stakes environments?

For me, the real test isn’t whether people speak up when everything is going well. It’s whether the most junior person in the room feels able to say, “I don’t think that’s going to work” – and what happens after they say it.

In high-stakes environments, challenge isn’t an inconvenience. Sometimes it’s exactly what protects the outcome.

As a leader, you therefore have to demonstrate that respectful challenge is genuinely welcome, including in the way you respond when somebody challenges you.

If I say I want people to speak up and then become defensive the moment they do, people will very quickly work out what the real rule is.

Psychological safety isn’t about making everything comfortable. It’s about making it safe to say the uncomfortable thing when it needs to be said. It does not mean lowering standards or avoiding difficult decisions; it means ensuring relevant concerns can be raised before those decisions are made.

You often lead through influence rather than hierarchy. What does that require?

It requires listening, credibility and the ability to translate different perspectives into a shared purpose.

When you do not have formal authority, you cannot rely on hierarchy to create momentum. You have to understand what matters to people, what they are accountable for and what might prevent them from engaging. That means listening carefully, asking the right questions and showing that you understand the pressures on all sides.

I have had to do that frequently in Defence, where progress often depends on people from different organisations, professions and levels choosing to work towards the same outcome. I have facilitated senior discussions, brought the right stakeholders around a shared problem, surfaced risks that were not being addressed and created practical mechanisms—such as stakeholder strategies, engagement trackers and terms of reference—to turn discussion into clearer ownership and action.

Influence also requires the confidence to challenge constructively, including upwards, while remaining focused on the outcome rather than on being right. I try to bring evidence, make the implications clear and offer a practical route forward. Over time, that builds trust because people know I will not simply highlight a problem; I will help create the conditions to resolve it.

I have learned that influence is not about being the loudest person in the room. It comes from being consistent, useful and trusted, and sometimes from asking the question that helps people see the problem differently. Authority may secure compliance, but influence creates commitment.

If you could go back to the moment you were considering returning to work, what would you tell yourself?

I’d tell myself not to confuse a loss of confidence with a loss of capability.

At the time, I don’t think I fully understood the difference.

I’d also tell myself not to spend so much energy worrying about whether I was “starting again”. I wasn’t. I was returning with everything I’d learned before my career break, everything I’d learned during it, and a much clearer sense of what I wanted from work.

So, I’d tell myself to be a little braver and a little more patient.

You’re not starting again. You’re starting from a different place.

What would you say to someone who thinks their opportunity has passed?

I’d say: don’t make that decision on behalf of your future self.

It’s very easy to look at somebody else’s career and think you’re behind, or that you’ve missed the moment when you were supposed to do something. Careers – and lives – just aren’t that neat.

I returned after a long break. I’ve changed sectors. I’ve had to rebuild my confidence. And I’ve found myself doing work I couldn’t have predicted earlier in my career.

I wouldn’t pretend reinvention is always easy. It isn’t. But I do think we’re sometimes too quick to decide that a door has closed simply because we can’t yet see how to open it.

Your experience still counts. Your skills still count. And you are allowed to change direction.

Your most meaningful chapter may still be ahead of you.