You might be saying something like this:
- “She used to have such a drive. I don’t know what happened.”
- “We keep losing our most experienced people, and I can’t explain it to the Board.”
- “Our engagement programme isn’t doing much for the over-40s.”
- “He was a great senior manager. Now he’s just so detached.”
There’s usually one thing underneath all of it.
The people haven’t gone anywhere.
But somewhere in their forties, something changes: how they perceive themselves (identity), what they want to contribute, what feels meaningful, what kind of work still fits who they are. Their role hasn’t kept up with these changes.
And when there’s a gap between who you’ve become and what your job still asks of you, you start to gradually check out. Usually without anyone noticing until it’s too late.
The real risk isn’t losing talent. It’s keeping people in roles that no longer match who they’ve become.
How I help organisations
After working with me, managers start having completely different conversations with their senior people.
How we get there depends on where you want to start:
01
Keynotes & Talks
A new lens on mid-career identity and motivation that changes how leadership thinks about retention and engagement.
For leadership conferences, HR events or management offsite days in Belgium, Europe or beyond.
02
Workshops
Hands-on sessions that give managers and HR teams practical tools to recognise and respond to mid-career disengagement before it becomes departure.
03
Employee Research
Pinpoint where mid-career staff are losing motivation, stuck in their roles or at risk of leaving.
Then translate these insights into clear strategies for engagement and retention
04
Strategic Coaching
For senior leaders who are navigating their own midlife challenges.
Individual or small-group format.
Why work with me
Most people working in this space come from HR or organisational psychology.
I don’t.
I’ve spent almost 25 years inside organisations like yours. I’ve built and led teams, managed people through transitions, and been part of leadership teams making exactly the kind of decisions you’re making now.
I know what this looks like from the inside – from experience, not from a textbook or a therapy practice.
I also bring a brand strategist’s eye to the problem. And identity is something brand strategists understand differently than HR professionals do.
That combination is what makes my work different.
Feedback from keynote and workshop participants
What senior leaders say after working with me
Frequently asked questions
Why do experienced employees suddenly seem like a different person at work?
Because they probably are, but not in a bad way.
In short: they’ve grown.
Their values have shifted, what feels meaningful to them has changed and what they want to contribute to the company and to others looks different than it did ten or fifteen years ago.
But their role hasn’t kept up with all these changes. That gap is what you’re noticing from the outside.
Is mid-career disengagement the same as a midlife crisis?
No.
A midlife crisis is sudden, visible and emotionally driven. What I’m talking about is more gradual.
Most people going through this are still showing up and still delivering. They’re just slowly withdrawing from the work.
That’s what makes it so easy to miss and so easy to misdiagnose as a performance issue.
Why do experienced professionals lose motivation at work?
Rarely because of pay, management or workload. Although those tend to get the blame.
The more common cause is that what drives them has changed, but their role hasn’t. After twenty or thirty years, the goals and sense of purpose that shaped someone’s early career look very different.
When the role stops reflecting that, motivation steadily erodes.
Why do organisations lose their most experienced staff?
Usually because they see it too late.
By the time it comes up in an exit interview, it’s been building for years.
And the people most at risk are often your strongest performers. The ones who are capable enough to keep delivering, but have decided for themselves that what they’re delivering no longer fits who they are.
Most retention strategies don’t get anywhere near this.
How is this different from a standard engagement or wellbeing programme?
Most engagement programmes treat the symptoms: low performance scores, declining output, increased absence.
What I work on is the cause: the gap between who someone has become and what their role still asks of them.
You can’t fix that with a wellbeing initiative or a team away day. It needs a different conversation entirely.
How can organisations keep their experienced professionals engaged?
By taking role evolution as seriously as performance management.
That means creating regular space to talk about what people want to contribute, not just what they’re expected to deliver. An annual review is not that space.
A professional who joined at 39 is a different person at 49. The role should reflect that where possible.
Most organisations know this in theory, but very few do something about it in practice.
How can mid-career professionals stay motivated and purposeful at work?
What I see most often is people jumping straight to the big conclusion: I need to change jobs, change careers, change everything.
And sometimes that’s the right decision. But more often it’s worth first understanding what has really changed. Once you know that, you tend to take better decisions.
Do we need to roll this out organisation-wide?
No.
This tends to concentrate in a specific group: professionals in their forties and fifties with twenty or more years of experience.
A targeted approach with that group produces disproportionate results, because these are usually your hardest to replace people. You don’t need an organisation-wide programme to make a meaningful difference.
What does a typical engagement look like?
It depends on what you’re dealing with. Some organisations start with a workshop to build shared understanding among managers. Others want to understand the scale of the problem first through employee research.
There’s no fixed programme. The work is shaped around what you’re seeing and experiencing in your organisation.
Not sure where to start?
That’s fine.
Most organisations don’t know what they need until we’ve had a conversation about what they’re actually seeing.