Interested in starting your own entrepreneurial journey in business development but unsure what to expect? Then read up on our interview with Xenia Wickett, Director of Wickett Advisory Ltd, located in Hughenden Valley, UK.
What's your business, and who are your customers?
I help leaders make better, more informed decisions. I facilitate this through three key services:
- analysis about key international trends and dynamics
- executive coaching
- moderation, chairing and hosting.
My customers range from CEOs and senior executives to entrepreneurs. I work with large industry organisations, global businesses, and small growing organisations that are trying to better understand the changes taking place globally and how they, as individuals and organisations, can best lead to realise the opportunities and mitigate the challenges they face.
Tell us about yourself
After a lengthy career in geopolitics and international strategy, I've seen first-hand and studied in-depth the consequences of good and bad decision-making in some of the highest-stakes situations imaginable. I now apply this experience to work with leaders to broaden their thinking, understanding, and perspective around global geopolitics, political and ESG dynamics, or about their own leadership and direction. I help them make smarter, more informed, and more confident decisions. I have worked on both sides of the Atlantic in leadership roles in the US White House, Harvard, Chatham House, and Equinor. I've led on South Asia policy and helped set up homeland security after 9/11 for the US Government, run Harvard's pre-eminent international affairs research centre, and launched a peacebuilding foundation in Switzerland and Chatham House's Academy for Leadership. I've also sat on Equinor's management team for global strategy and BD and led their geopolitics and integrity due diligence teams. I now run my own advisory business, Wickett Advisory.
I am a sought-after moderator, interviewer, and speaker. Recent highlights include chairing and moderating discussions with Elon Musk, Ukrainian President Zelensky, and the CEOs of TotalEnergies and Equinor and discussing the US midterms with Simon Schama and Ed Luce on stage at the FT Weekend Festival. For my day job, I regularly advise senior business executives on the impact of geopolitics on their strategy. I am often brought in to discuss geopolitical issues with business leaders and their clients. I also work one-to-one with senior leaders to hone their decision-making, stakeholder management, and leadership skills, particularly during times of transition, whether of themselves, their organisations, or their broader environment. I was born to South African and Hungarian parents, yet I am British and American by nationality. (It's a long story.)
I attended university in England (Oxford) and graduate school in the United States (Harvard). Before I became a coach, I served in senior-level positions in business (Equinor), government (the White House), NGOs (PeaceNexus), think-tanks (Chatham House), and academia (Harvard Kennedy School's Belfer Center). I worked in, or closely with, many different cultural contexts, including the US, UK, Switzerland, Israel, India, and Norway. Unsurprisingly, my somewhat eclectic background and broad international experience have played an outsized role in leading me to where I am today. My multinational upbringing and education led me to pursue work focused on international affairs. And through that experience, I learned that bringing diverse perspectives to a problem set is key to finding lasting solutions to complex challenges.
I also realized that not only do I get enormous satisfaction from solving difficult problems, I get even more satisfaction from helping other people learn to solve their problems, thus building capacity. Few things are more fulfilling and make me happier than helping others grow and develop new capabilities and competencies, reach their potential, and achieve their goals. That realization about what I love to do led me to launch a coaching and advisory business. More specifically, it's a business based largely on using my understanding of the world and my experience with overcoming challenges to help people realize their potential and figure out where they want to go and how to get there in the most direct way possible.
What's your biggest accomplishment as a business owner?
I get the greatest fulfilment from helping people. My biggest accomplishment is when a client goes away feeling like they've made progress in their thinking. This is true whether I'm coaching, moderating, or providing geopolitical insights. When you see the light go on for the client, that is magical. Some of the most 'fun' things I've done in the past year include interviewing Elon Musk at the ONS conference in Norway and joining Ed Luce and Simon Schama on stage at the FT Festival discussing US politics.
What's one of the hardest things that comes with being a business owner?
Having spent 25 years in organisations at increasingly senior levels, the thing I've found hardest is redefining work for myself and its boundaries. This means, in part, permitting myself to be more flexible with my work practices. Owning the primacy of productivity over spending time in front of a computer. The other principal struggle I've had after all this time in brand name organisations (Harvard, the White House, State Dept, Chatham House, Equinor) is owning my new identity as an individual leading my own business. I no longer have the supporting architecture of a known name. It takes time to stand in your own space (I wrote a LinkedIn piece about this last summer if you're interested in more).
What are the top tips you'd give to anyone looking to start, run and grow a business today?
- Do something you're passionate about.
- Every day, ask yourself what one thing you can do that day that moves the ball forward, even if in small steps.
- Be curious. Explore. Know that to learn; you have to fail. Don't count 'likes.' Believe in yourself. And most of all, be kind to yourself.
Where can people find you and your business?
Website: https://www.wickettadvisory.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/moments_of_xen/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/xeniawickett
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/xenia-wickett-2686b0/
If you like what you've read here and have your own story as a solo or small business entrepreneur that you'd like to share, then please answer these interview questions. We'd love to feature your journey on these pages.
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