What happens when everything you’ve worked for works?
finally
And you find yourself wondering, what now?
Most people in this position don’t need to leave. Some do.
The work is to know which, before you do anything irreversible.
Nothing is wrong
that's the problem
You might have built the business, or climbed a long way inside someone else’s. Either way it worked out and lately, that’s become the problem.
Nothing is wrong, which is exactly the difficulty. The business runs, the team is capable, the diary is full and people assume you’re fine. Yet somewhere in the last few years a question has started turning up uninvited — on the drive home, in the gap after a meeting that didn’t need you, in the second week of the holiday. What now?
There aren’t many places to take that question. Work is out, for obvious reasons. Home is complicated — said badly, it sounds like this life isn’t enough, which isn’t what you mean. Friends well-meaningly reach for a joke.
My working assumption is that this question contains information for you and it is positive. It can be worked out methodically, in private, without needing to upend anything in the process.
Do any of these sound familiar?
(01)
The business no longer depends on you the way it did
— and your identity hasn’t quite caught up.
(02)
You achieved what you set out to achieve
yet it doesn’t feel the way you imagined it would.
(03)
You’re weighing a significant change
selling, or stepping back, perhaps leaving — and you’re frightened of making a decision you’ll regret.
(04)
You’ve stopped choosing the life you lead
and started merely maintaining it.
(05)
Everyone comes to you for answers
...yet you have nowhere to think out loud yourself.
Not advice —
somewhere to think
You almost certainly don’t need more advice. You have plenty: colleagues, books, podcasts, half of LinkedIn. Advice isn’t what’s missing. What’s missing, for most people in this position, is somewhere to think — a serious conversation that is entirely about you. Not about your investors, your colleagues, your staff, your family or your clients. Just you. Senior people almost never get that kind of time and space to think.
The Work
Six one-to-one sessions of 75 minutes over about three months, online or in person. Between sessions there’s a little short reflective work — nothing performative, but it matters to keep you gently curious.
I should say what this isn’t. It isn’t career advice, and it isn’t a programme for engineering your escape. Most people who look hard at this don’t actually leave the life they’ve built — they change how they hold it, or which parts of it they feed. Some do make a big change. The point is knowing which of those people you are, and why, before you do anything you can’t take back.
It isn’t therapy either. The two share a border and I take it seriously: if what you’re carrying needs a therapist, I’ll say so plainly and help you find a good one.
What you leave with is unglamorous and useful: a clearer account of what’s actually driving the question, and a considered answer to what stays and what changes — one you could still defend to yourself in five years.
Who I am
I’m Hamish Renton. I founded HRA Global, a food and drink strategy consultancy, and have run it for seventeen years. Over that time, I’ve been lucky enough to build the business alongside a brilliant team.
In the early months of 2025, I slowly noticed something happening that I wasn’t really prepared for: the business no longer needed me in quite the way it once had. The team was capable, things were working — which was exactly what we’d spent years building towards. But it left me with a question I hadn’t expected: what was I for now?
I became the client for this work, before I became the coach.
Working the question through properly changed the shape of my life without requiring me to abandon any of it — and it’s what led me to retrain. I’m in professional coach training — Psychosynthesis leadership coaching, and in regular supervision, supported by a mentor whilst completing my training. My training is overseen and accredited by the coaching gold standard EMCC (European Mentoring and Coaching Council).
This autumn I am taking on a handful of founding clients alongside being CEO of my consultancy, which these days increasingly runs itself.
I’ve spent two decades sitting across the table from senior people in large organisations – startups, private equity, corporates, co-operatives, government and the public sector. I know what the successful version of this life looks like from the inside, and what the personal costs are to keep it up.
Three decades in food and drink still leave their mark: I still can’t walk past a supermarket shelf without fussing over the new products I see.
How I work
I’m less interested in fixing the presenting “problem” than understanding the person experiencing it. That means being curious about what sits underneath your professional life — your history, beliefs, assumptions and the parts of you that may want contradictory things. The aim isn’t to tell you what to do, but to create enough space to understand what’s really going on and work out where you go from here.
01
Scepticism welcome
If you’re sceptical about coaching, that’s reasonable. Some of it sadly deserves that reputation. The people I talk to often arrive sceptical, and I’d rather work with that than pretend otherwise.
02
Beyond 'the problem'
Most coaching aims at the presenting “problem”. I’m more interested in the person underneath it — including the parts of you that want contradictory things, and the sense that something in you may already know the answer.
03
You have the answers
The approach I’m training in takes that seriously and is unusually practical about it. I won’t have the answers; the working assumption is that you do, somewhere. My job is the right questions. You’ll do most of the talking.
Practicalities
SESSIONS
Sessions are 75 minutes online or in person. The cost is £300 for 6 sessions while I complete the accreditation process — it will be more once I have graduated, for obvious reasons.
unglamorous assurances
I’m professionally insured, in regular supervision, and working within the EMCC’s Code of Ethics on the way to accreditation. Everything you say stays in the room. Ask me about any of it. If you are interested, the place to start is a conversation: forty-five minutes, no charge, and I won’t chase you afterwards. If it’s not for you, that will be clear to both of us fairly quickly, and where I can I’ll point you somewhere more useful.