I worked as MD at a large investment bank in Canary Wharf managing over 300 people. I really enjoyed the people management side of the role, so after 20 years thought I might like to move more into coaching. After spending a day with a Hannah I realised I would miss being part of a bigger team and having a more strategic business remit and operations to guide.
I'm now working in consultancy helping companies go through change management processes - so very much focusing on people management, but giving me more of the strategic business focus I realised I needed.

I would highly recommend Viewvo to anyone looking to change their current career path. In fact, I already have! Prior to having my children I had a long career in the Financial industry. However, I’ve always been passionate about interior design...but had so many questions and doubts about how achievable this would be and what my next step should be.

After discovering Viewvo at a careers fair and noticing that Rachel Laxer was one of the mentors I saw this as an opportunity not to be missed - and the fee goes to charity so it was a win win. Rachel is a fantastic person to shadow, a real inspiration having made a hugely successful career change into interior design from a prior career in Finance.

Rachel later invited me to be involved in the amazing interior design breast cancer charity event that she is co-chair for, Holiday House which launched in London this month. Through helping out at Holiday House I have met a number of other designers and professionals within the design industry so it has been an immensely rewarding process.

I’m an accountant by profession. I’ve been making things all my life and I’ve got to the stage now where I didn’t want to do accountancy anymore as it wasn’t really fulfilling me.
I found the day with Susannah absolutely brilliant. She’s been really generous to me in opening up her contacts book so that I know who to go to now for leather suppliers and materials, and she’s given me really good insight into how the mechanics of the business work. the nuts and the bolts of it, the highs, and the lows. I’d definitely recommend job shadowing!

*Update* 7 months on Mary is looking at buying a leather goods production company, which would be a faster route to market for her. Meeting Susannah helped her decision by providing invaluable insight into the industry.

*Update* 1 year on Mary has taken a significant step – she has bought a leather goods production business in the West Midlands (so has moved from Ireland to England), she now employs 10 people and has big plans! The starting point was her time with Susannah – congratulations Mary we’re super excited for you and all you've achieved!

Dave was down to earth, realistic, and extremely open and friendly as we discussed the challenges of starting a business in what is a competitive marketplace. He gave me some great advice and it was fascinating and heartening to hear his story. All in all a really useful half hour chinwag!

'Thank you for the chat and tips today. Such a cool concept and super helpful.'

I'm currently a project manager working in the financial services sector in London. I decided to do the job shadowing with Kiki because I’ve been pasionate about wine for quite a long time now, and I'm not that passionate about financial services!

It’s been really interesting, Kiki’s taken me through how she started out in her journey into the wine trade and the business she’s created. We went through some of my ideas and the things I’ve been thinking about in terms of what I want to do as a future venture. My utopian idea of what it might be like to run your own business have possibly been shattered, but then it's been really encouraging to see how much she's achieved here.

it's really opened my eyes to things I hadn’t thought about before, confirmed my thinking in a few areas, but also made me think about challenges I hadn’t expected so certainly it's been really useful. I’d really recommend ViewVo and job shadowing to anyone looking to change career in a slightly, or completely, different direction.