What is a career pivot? It is a planned, purposeful change in career direction. It can be a move to a related field, or to something completely new. Whatever its direction, a pivot is a meaningful change that requires thought and careful planning.
An ex-colleague had recently asked me why I hadn’t considered writing about my pivot, given the new role I had just started in. He had already successfully pivoted from an investment banking role to a career consultant, written a book and had 3 million LinkedIn followers. My new role was a complete departure from my previous banking career. While it is too early to say that the pivot was successful, it started me thinking about writing about this topic.
One wonders if it is even possible for a mid-career person in their late forties to early fifties to make this transition. The probability of succeeding is low as many factors are in play here that could easily derail the journey. Many of us are uncertain as to what we what to do next when reaching this stage of our lives. To do something more meaningful and purposeful as oppose to just aiming for financial gain alone.
I often wonder about this as I wanted to do something different, since 2018 when I left my last banking job. It was a disastrous 9 months there,where I tried my best shot at trying to do a decent job but failed miserably. 3 months into this new job, the new supervisor saw me as a mismatch to the role, compared to the person that had originally hired me but lost his job due to office politics.
At that point in my halftime moment, I was at a loss as to what I wanted to do next. I didn’t want to go back to the banking world as I knew that there would be hardly any available roles for me and that my age (52) then would have been a disadvantage. Ageism is very real in the financial sector where bosses are getting younger nowadays. Who would want to manage an old fart?
Luckily, 2 opportunities happened during that time that enlightened me and showed me the way to the next stage in my life journey. These 2 trigger points helped me stay focused towards the beginning of my career pivot into my present job as a CEO of a sustainability startup.
The first trigger point was the pivot into a part-time consulting career. An ex-colleague wanted someone with treasury experience to help him with a Myanmar microfinance company. He had recently become the CEO and needed experienced bankers to visit the country monthly as consultants to train his team. Subsequently, I stayed in this role for atotal of 4 years until COVID-19 and a military coup disrupted everything that made me decide to end the engagement.
During this time, I actively sought out other project based consultancy jobs which could fill my time. Through the next few years, I managed to secure a few, thanks to personal contacts and networking. One was a 4 months project linked to an upcoming Neo digital bank that was most rewarding to me .
The second trigger point also happened at the right time and place. Given that I had a lot of time on my hands as consultancy contract work is usually either for a short period or just a few days a month, I had to focus my energies on a new and separate venture.
The timing was perfect as the government had just launched the Skillsfuture program. With big subsidies, it encouraged mid-career citizens to learn new skills, to stay relevant to the workforce and market trends. I just had to narrow down to the topics I thought were important and become a student again.
I decided that with my previous work experience, I could use technology to help me analyze data to become a better business consultant. I also wanted to challenge myself, to prove that an old dog can learn new tricks.
After taking a few short courses, I decided to be more ambitious. I signed up for a 1-year part-time course to earn a diploma in Business Analytics via evening classes. It was challenging at first to be in a class where I was the oldest and the average age was below 30. At the graduation ceremony, which my wife kindly made time to attend, I was so proud that an uncle like me could complete a diploma after having left school 28 years ago.
That led me to take up more challenging courses that interest me. At that time, AI, Blockchain, Cloud Computing and Big Data (A B C D of Fintech) were subjects that consumed me. There were so many Skillsfuture options that helped me deep dive into them.
I did overseas study trips in 2018/19 to Hangzhou and Seoul to learn about Alibaba e-commerce and Blockchain, plus as many short courses as I could. I was hungry for new knowledge and they excited me. I discovered that I knew very little and there was an infinite lifelong learning opportunity for me to pursue.
The following course I took up was the 6 month full-time IBM AI course which happened during the pandemic in 2021. I learnt to attend classes, do project discussions and exams using Zoom and other online tools effectively. Because of Covid, we only had one face-to-face meeting with my class of 20 during that time!
In early 2022, I signed up for a more technical course to challenge myself further. It was a 4 month NUS Fintech innovation course that tested me to the fullest. I was probably lost during most of the online classes as one programming mistake would throw me out and I would be unable to catch up.
My Myanmar consultancy job exposed me to the ESG aspect which deepened my understanding of Impact investments on the Social side via microfinance. It complimented my years with a sovereign fund from 2012 to 2016 investing in the operational management of companies in developing countries like China, Cambodia, Myanmar and Vietnam.
Another ex-colleague started to approach me in late 2022 with the idea of setting up a group of companies focused on sustainable investing. He wanted to set up a fund management company and apply for a license with the authorities. He invited me in to participate in the application process to help set up the company.
Things seemed to be coming together for me as the last few years of consultancy and Skillsfuture courses were aligning to help me grasp this new opportunity. I had a passion for these areas and they felt meaningful for me to pursue further.
We got the approval late last year and I am now in my 6th month of working full-time. I had stopped work and went into semi-retirement mode since 2018. There are still many things I would need to do before I can say that we have successfully pulled this new opportunity off. There are so many moving variables which can go wrong. Raising funds from investors and getting projects lined up is no easy task.
Have I successfully completed a career pivot and do I have a good story to tell yet? Only time will tell. The finishing line is still ahead but my half time journey looks very exciting ahead.
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