Roslin Macdonald left the high-powered corporate world to pursue her original dream of working in the care sector. This is her story of building her private practice…
Name
Roslin Macdonald
Old Position
I worked for Mercer
New Career
Clinical director of my private practice that I set up in 2015
Can you tell us about your current role?
I am the clinical director of my private practice that I set up in 2015. I’m a counsellor and clinical supervisor and I support people who have mental health issues and relationship issues. It started off with me on my own, after I qualified, with one client. I now have 19 people working alongside me. We’ve got four offices in Glasgow and one in Aberdeen.
What were you doing previously?
I worked for Mercer, the pensions consultancy, and before that I was with a similar organisation called Aon. I was a client relationship manager with Mercer in the pensions administration business and also led a UK sales team.
What made you decide to change careers?
I was managing the pension administration of big FTSE 100 companies. I had good relationships with the clients, but the job involved long hours and lots of travelling to London and across the UK.
I’d reached the senior role of principal in Mercer. I was grateful for all the opportunities I’d been given, but corporate life was becoming more and more difficult and stressful.
My marriage had broken down and I then lost my mum, and I just started to think that there must be more to life than this. So, I went back to what I originally wanted to do which was something in the caring industry.
When I left school at 17, I’d wanted to be a nurse. At the time nursing training had two intakes in May and September. My dad said to me ‘you’re not sitting around here all summer, you need to get yourself a job’, so I started working in a YTS (Youth Training Scheme) in a chartered accountants office, Pannell Kerr Foster.
When I was due to leave to start nursing training, they offered to keep me on and train me in accountancy. The pay was very appealing so giving that up and moving to nursing didn’t seem like a good thing to do.
My marriage had broken down and I had lost my mum, and I just started to think that there must be more to life than this. So, I went back to what I originally wanted to do which was something in the caring industry.
How did you go about it?
My uncle was terminally ill at the time, and I was spending a lot of time with him in hospital. I noticed all these older patients with no visitors. I ended up becoming a volunteer with the NHS, visiting people who were at end of life or had dementia.
I really loved volunteering, but I recognised I could probably do with some skills around how you speak to people in those circumstances. I did a counselling skills certificate and that was the start of it all.
How hard was it to make the change?
I was a single parent with two kids, I had a full-time job, I was studying, and it was hard. I look back now, and I think, ‘how the hell did I do that?’ I was driven by the fact that I loved what I was learning and what I was doing.
The more I was getting involved in training as a counsellor, the more I realised that it was time to leave the corporate world and take a leap. When I qualified, I decided that was it. On my very last day in Mercer, I was in hospital getting my gall bladder removed so that’s what I was thinking about primarily.
Change can happen at any point. You can do it when you’re 26 or when you’re 56. There is no time bar. If you feel the desire to change your career and your life, absolutely do it because you won’t regret it.
What transferable skills did you find that you had?
My years in the corporate world gave me a lot of tools to set up a private practice. I had accountancy, marketing, and sales experience. That’s been really helpful. At Mercer, you got a lot of excellent training.
In the job I do now, I absolutely love working with people. I work with individuals and couples as well as supervising other counsellors in practice. I was a manager for several years, so I am getting to use those skills as well.
What would you say to other people who are thinking of making a change?
I would say don’t wait until you’re a certain age. Change can happen at any point. You can do it when you’re 26 or when you’re 56. There is no time bar. If you feel the desire to change your career and your life, absolutely do it because you won’t regret it.
Taking a chance and believing in yourself are probably the two biggest things that can help you. So often, we just want to stay in the same place for safety instead of doing what is going to make us happy and contented. I’m very happy and content with the life I’ve got and very fortunate in that.
