For our first guest we caught up with James Allen, owner / MD of Counsel - a boutique policy and public affairs consultancy working across the voluntary, statutory and sports sectors.

In many ways James was the perfect first guest for us - one of Gethyn’s longtime collaborators, he was a crucial point of reference as our co-host started out on his own solo journey, as well as occupying a professional space in between Gethyn (non-profit sector) and Simon (motorsport).

James’ career began with political ambitions but was curtailed by a lack of the personal networks so crucial to advancing in that world. Nevertheless, he developed a niche influencing the political space through the sports and voluntary sectors, albeit in a quite a different environment to the one we see today.

After holding a number of senior positions in non-profit trade bodies and membership organisations, James took the leap to go solo after realising he could provide a better, cleaner service outside of the trappings for a larger organisation. IN this episode he not only recounts this journey but describes how he designs his services, how to charge without guilt and what he won’t do for money.

Towards the end of the episode we take a deep dive into the inequalities still rampant in the sports sector covering the shortcomings around athlete welfare, financial inequalities in motorsport and what we can really do to improve gender diversity in participation.
Connect with James on LinkedIn

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Introducing How did you do that? A new podcast about people stepping out of the traditional career path to create their own or goal it alone.

Meet Simon and Gethyn - the pods creators and co-hosts - reflecting on their own versions of this journey.

Simon is a Gen Z who had a very unrewarding couple of Covid-era years at University before deciding to drop out early in order to focus on developing his own marketing and development business, working mainly in motorsport.

Gethyn is Gen X, spending much of his career in short term, stressful roles in the charity sector before finally leaving traditional employment and going freelance in 2020. He still works mainly for non-profits, albeit in a consulting capacity, offering a very different work/life balance.

Though from different generations Simon and Gethyn realised they had a lot in common - the stresses of making the leap to going solo, the unknowns around starting your own business, the effort it takes to wrench yourself from a traditional, structured career path.

In this episode you’ll hear their back stories in their own words - where they’ve been, what they’ve done, how they’ve failed and what they’ve learned - revealing their hopes and fears in ways both personal and universal.

And in the following episodes we’ll meet a host of different individuals who have done something similar, all with their own stories to tell.

We hope you enjoy How Did You Do That - please consider rating the pod and leaving a comment below :)

Read more about Simon or Gethyn, or connect with them professionally, here: linktr.ee/howdidyoudothat.

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