About Chapter 22

After 21 years as a senior leader in Banking, I made the deeply intentional decision to step away from a career I was incredibly grateful for and begin a new chapter. At the time, I knew one thing with absolute certainty: I wanted to use everything I had learned through leadership, psychology, coaching and my own lived experience to help other people flourish.

What I couldn't have known was how much the next year would teach me too.

Since founding Chapter 22, I've had the privilege of working alongside extraordinary women at very different points in their lives and careers. Senior leaders carrying more than anyone around them realises. Women recovering from burnout. Women navigating career change, confidence, boundaries and identity. Women building businesses. Women trying to work out what comes next.

I've also worked alongside founders, leadership teams and organisations, which has allowed me to look at the same challenges from both sides: the individual trying to flourish and the environment in which they're trying to do it.

And something has become increasingly clear to me.

Women don't need fixing.

For years, I thought many of the challenges I'd experienced myself — self-doubt, imposter syndrome, perfectionism, over-responsibility and struggling to have my voice heard — were things I simply needed to overcome. I understand that very differently now.

As a senior female leader, I knew what it was like to be successful on the outside while questioning myself on the inside. As an introvert in environments that often rewarded extroversion, I learned to have my voice heard without becoming someone I wasn't. I also experienced burnout in 2014 and discovered first-hand the consequences of a culture that can glorify being constantly busy, endlessly available and always striving.

Midlife and menopause brought another unexpected chapter and ultimately led me to become a Certified Menopause Coach. My Master's Degree in Psychology, counselling training and experience as a Samaritans listening volunteer have further shaped the way I work and deepened my understanding of people, behaviour and what allows us to flourish.

But perhaps some of my greatest learning has come from the women I've worked alongside over the last year.

I've seen how easily the qualities that make women exceptional can become the very things that exhaust them. How responsibility can become over-responsibility. How high standards can become perfectionism. How empathy can become carrying everyone else. How adapting to the world around us can slowly become losing sight of what we need.

And I've seen what can happen when women begin to understand themselves differently.

They trust their voice again. They take up the space they've already earned. They stop editing themselves before anyone else does. They make more intentional choices about the careers and lives they want, and begin to fulfil their potential without sacrificing themselves in the process.

That learning has brought together so many threads of my life and career.

And it has led me here.

To Womenomics.

Womenomics brings together more than twenty years of leadership, my background in psychology, my own lived experience and everything I've learned from the extraordinary women I've had the privilege of working alongside.

A year ago, Chapter 22 was my leap of faith.

Today, I understand what that leap was leading me towards.

And I feel like we're only just beginning. 🌿

Chris x