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The mid-life professionals ditching the corporate world for risky new careers
Tom Rachman was, seemingly, at the top of his game. His best-selling novel, The Imperfectionists, had been translated into 26 languages. The New York Times’ book critic decreed that it was “so good I had to read it twice simply to figure out how he pulled it off”. Rachman’s fourth novel, The Imposters, was released last year.
But then, at the tail-end of his 40s, he packed it all in to go back to school.
He enrolled on a Master’s degree in behavioural science at the London School of Economics (LSE), putting his foot on the first rung of a new career ladder. “Life is long and one changes over time,” Rachman says of his decision to start over. “You’re not necessarily who you were when you chose your subject in university or whenever you took your first step towards a path.”
Going from best-selling novelist to a behavioural science student isn’t the most obvious of career steps. But the dwindling relevance and remuneration of fiction led Rachman to reassess his future. Learning other skills more useful for a changing world seemed prudent, at least financially. Still, switching tracks when you’re at the top of your game significantly raises the stakes.
“There’s a great penalty that you pay for shifting professionally, or there’s a risk that you could. It’s a worrying and maybe even professionally dangerous choice to make. But it is one that I think a great deal of people have a temptation to [do].”
It was scary, the now 50-year-old Rachman admits, suddenly being surrounded (and eyed suspiciously) by students who weren’t even born when he went to university the first time around. Telling those close to him, who might question his life choices, was unsettling too.
And so was having to confront what dropping from the top of one industry to the bottom of another meant for his sense of self? “It’s not just the uncertainty; I think it’s also the loss of status,” he says.
Previously, he had considered that notion “quite vain, and something that I hoped wouldn’t affect my choices in life; that I would be more driven by what interested me, and what I hope to contribute, or what I was just drawn to do”.
But when he got to LSE, “I suddenly cared about being among 20-somethings, and feeling like a newbie and an ignorant character among people who were fresh out of secondary school.
“It was quite an adjustment,” he says. “It’s not as easy as you might hope it would be.”
Still, while his path now isn’t entirely clear – he is looking for a role in AI policy or governance – the classes proved “exhilarating,” and a chance for “deep learning” at a time of life when many find themselves wading through work days on autopilot.
Roshana Gammampila has found herself similarly galvanised by making an unlikely switch. Two months ago, she traded corporate life in London, and her six-figure salary, for Sri Lanka.
A year-and-a-half earlier she visited a tea plantation formerly owned by her grandfather. At the time, she was acting chief operating officer of product at Toyota Connect, but – on seeing the plantation was up for sale – she felt she needed to act.
“We realised that if it was bought by a company not intending to run it as a tea estate, the community that lived there would be displaced.”
Her partner had recently left PwC’s executive leadership team and was ready for a new gig. This one, arbitrary as it was to both of their career histories, seemed to make sense.
Neither had any experience in beverage manufacturing or agriculture when they took over Devagiri, which Gammampila’s grandfather founded in 1947. That wasn’t lost on them, nor their close friends and family. “My mother thought I was mad,” the 41-year-old says. “Most people, I think, were very surprised.”
She was, too. “When I first made the move, I wasn’t entirely comfortable with my choice myself. I’d have days where I’d think, ‘Oh my God, what have I done? I’ve literally just ripped to shreds all I’ve worked really hard for.’”
But their corporate careers were vital in helping their business get off the ground.
Devagiri now supplies a number of UK traders and restaurants, employs more than 150 staff, and provides funding for the elderly and orphans within the community living on the estate – helping them to get better access to resources like healthcare.
“This is our day-to-day – in addition to working out what our soil health is looking like, what a good replanting programme looks like and how much firewood we should be using in the furnace in the factory to dry the tea,” she says. “It’s very different.”
While she is confident that the move was “definitely the right thing to do”, Gammampila admits that “taking this leap was terrifying” – despite her conviction that they would make it a success.
Since they bought Devagiri in late 2022, they have not made a penny of profit. For now, everything is being reinvested into the company, with the couple using the rent from their home in London to help cover costs.
They had a culture shock of trading strictly scheduled days of meetings and after school clubs for 24-hour tea manufacturing (days begin with a 6.30am walk through the plantation and picked leaves are processed until midnight). But life is different now.
“We’re able to make a much more direct impact on people’s lives with what we do now than what I was doing previously,” she adds.
Renu Ballantine left the corporate world four years ago. After 20 years at ExxonMobil, where she was a senior commercial adviser for gas and power marketing, Ballantine wanted to spend more time with her children – which pushed her to start something new.
Now she is a private chef and is able to see the outcomes of her work in real time, even if she went from earning six figures in her former role to nothing in her first year.
“In a professional corporate career it’s competitive, especially when you get to a senior level,” she says. “And you don’t see the impact of the work you’re doing straight away.”
Now, “getting a thank you and a good tip at the end of the night is really rewarding”.
Last month Ballantine, 54, released her cookbook From Boardroom to Bouillabaisse, detailing how within three weeks of leaving her job, she had enrolled at Leiths School of Food and Wine to retrain as a chef.
Flying solo so quickly was “very daunting,” she reflects of the immediate loss of infrastructure and network, which left her “not knowing who to trust”.
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There were also logistical obstacles, like no longer having an IT or accounting department to fall back on. “You don’t know how to design a website, you don’t know how sponsored ads work on Instagram, so you have to learn a lot really quickly. It was scary, but at the same time I felt I was up for the challenge.”
Ballantine says there have been plenty of unexpected wins along the way: her income hasn’t taken as much of a hit as anticipated – she has been able to supplement cheffing with food consulting – and she has seen “amazing” improvements to her physical health now that she stands for 10 to 12 hours each day.
The rush of highs and lows are inevitable for career switchers, Rachman says. “Everything is in such flux. There’s something both frightening, but also exciting about that condition – to be in a position where you have possibilities.”