Leaving corporate to work independently sounds simple. Take your experience, pick your clients, set your own terms.

In reality, many consultants, fractional leaders, and NEDs discover something else instead: unpredictable income, one “client that feels like a job”, and a constant low-level anxiety about what happens next.

In this episode, I sit down with Dan Gwalter to unpack why this happens and how to avoid it.

Dan has lived this journey end to end. After leaving a FTSE 100 technology leadership role, he built a profitable consulting business the hard way, learned where most independents go wrong, and turned those lessons into a clear operating model that helps others build businesses they can actually rely on.

This conversation is not about hacks, personal branding tricks, or “just post more on LinkedIn”. It’s about structure.

Together, we explore:

• Why most independent professionals aren’t failing — they’re just operating without a system
• The difference between being a “fractional employee” and running a real business
• How to define the right clients, the right offers, and the right problems to solve
• Why visibility alone doesn’t create clients — and what actually does
• How to design an operating rhythm that works alongside delivery, not against it
• The psychological side of independence: confidence, self-doubt, and identity shifts

Dan also walks through the core elements of The Fractional Formula: an operating model designed to help consultants, fractional leaders, and NEDs build predictable deal flow, reduce fragility, and create momentum they can sustain.

If you’re thinking about going independent, already working as a consultant or fractional leader, or building a portfolio career and want it to feel stable rather than stressful, this episode will give you clarity, reassurance, and a practical path forward.

This is about building a business you can rely on, not winging it and hoping for the best.

If you’ve got the seed of an idea you keep pushing aside, you owe it to yourself to explore it.

Not to quit your job. Not to take a reckless leap. But to see whether it could become something real.

This episode is for senior leaders who feel successful on paper but quietly stuck; people who sense there’s more they could be building, yet don’t know where to start or how to do it safely.

We are joined by Ken Valledy, who talks through a practical, low-risk way to turn a side hustle into a real business; one that gives you options and a way out of the corporate rat race, without blowing up your life.

You’ll hear:

• Why leaving your job isn’t the goal; starting is
• How small steps create momentum long before money shows up
• What happens when you say your idea out loud for the first time
• How to test, shape, and validate an idea while keeping your job
• The five simple moves that take you from “what if?” to real progress

Ken shares his R.E.A.C.T. model, a framework designed to help you go from zero to one: getting your idea out of your head, into the world, and onto a path that could eventually support you full time.

If you feel the itch to do something of your own and don’t want to look back in five years wishing you’d tried, this conversation will help you take the first step.

In this episode, we sit down with Freddie Quek—Research Associate at Henley Business School, award-winning technology leader, advisor, and founder of #JoiningTheDots—to explore a question every tech professional needs to confront: What is our responsibility as technology leaders in a world where millions are still digitally excluded?

Freddie has led digital transformation across global organisations, including RELX, Wiley and Times Higher Education, where he helped develop the World University Rankings and SDG Impact Dashboard. Recognised by Computer Weekly and CIO 100 as one of the UK’s top technology leaders, he brings a rare blend of technical depth, social purpose, and strategic clarity.

Together, we dig into:

• Why 30% of the world being offline is not someone else’s problem.
• How digital exclusion shows up in everyday life — even for people who think they’re “tech savvy.”
• The Triple Bottom Line (Profit, Planet, People) and why it’s becoming essential leadership, not optional ethics.
• How AI and rapid technological change are widening new forms of inequality.
• What organisations, teams, and individual technologists can do today to make a measurable difference.
• Why solving this won’t come from charity — it will come from collective action across the tech sector.

Freddie also shares the story behind #JoiningTheDots and the newly formed NextPath Device Consortium, a sector-wide initiative helping the UK tackle device access, e-waste, and digital poverty at scale.

If you work in technology — in any role, at any level — this conversation will challenge how you see your influence and show you how to use your “superpower” for something bigger than your job description.