What Comes After Corporate?

For high-achieving women wondering whether to get started consulting

Every corporate career eventually comes to an end.

For some women, that ending arrives through retirement. For others, it follows restructuring, acquisition, leadership change, burnout, values misalignment or the realization that another corporate role is no longer the answer.

After 15, 20 or more years of building expertise, leading teams, solving complex problems and creating value inside organizations, many high-achieving women begin to consider a different possibility:

What comes after corporate?

For some, the answer is independent consulting: a way to turn decades of hard-won expertise into a premium consultancy they own, with greater professional and economic autonomy.

Leaving corporate and building what comes next

Knowing that your corporate career is ending is not the same as knowing what you want to do next.

Moving from corporate leadership into independent consulting involves decisions that even highly experienced executives may never have had to make.

Information is not the same as judgment

There is no shortage of information available to a woman considering what comes after corporate.

But information is not the same as experienced strategic perspective when making a significant professional and economic decision involving decades of expertise, reputation and earning power.

What comes after corporate may be a question of ownership

After decades of creating value inside organizations, some women are ready to build an enterprise in which their expertise, judgment and intellectual capital become assets they control.

Independent consulting can provide that opportunity, creating greater ownership of the value their expertise generates.

Wickedly Smart Women®: What Comes After Corporate?

Wickedly Smart Women® is hired by high-achieving women considering consulting after corporate and by women who have already decided to build a premium independent consultancy who are looking for experienced strategic guidance as they get started.

Through the award-winning Wickedly Smart Women® Podcast, book franchise, diagnostic resources and strategic consulting engagements, Wickedly Smart Women® has built a body of work focused on what comes after corporate, independent consulting, business ownership and greater economic sovereignty.

Wondering whether it may be time to leave corporate?

From Corporate to Consulting: A Diagnostic Roadmap & Exit Timing Assessment is designed for experienced corporate women considering consulting after corporate who are uncertain about when to make the move.

The assessment provides a private way to gain clarity about your exit timing: whether the time has come to leave, whether to begin laying the groundwork for an eventual departure or whether remaining in corporate makes sense for now.

Take the Exit Timing Assessment

Considering getting started consulting?

The Get Started Consulting Clarity Conversation is a private, fee-based strategic assessment for experienced corporate women who believe consulting may be what they want to do after corporate and want professional perspective before committing to that direction.

The Clarity Conversation is designed to discern whether consulting is actually an appropriate path for your experience, circumstances and objectives and concludes with a professional recommendation about the appropriate next step.

Explore the Get Started Consulting Clarity Conversation

Frequently Asked Questions About Consulting After Corporate

  • A successful corporate career does not automatically mean consulting is the right direction. Consulting is one possible way to turn substantial professional expertise into an independently owned business, but the decision deserves professional consideration before committing significant time and capital.

    Wickedly Smart Women® offers the Get Started Consulting Clarity Conversation, a private, fee-based strategic assessment designed to discern whether consulting is actually an appropriate path for your experience, circumstances and objectives.

  • Description text goes hereThe appropriate timing is different for every woman. Knowing that you eventually want to leave corporate does not necessarily mean that now is the right time to make the move.

    From Corporate to Consulting: A Diagnostic Roadmap & Exit Timing Assessment provides experienced corporate women considering consulting with a private way to gain clarity about whether the time has come to leave, begin laying the groundwork for an eventual departure or remain in corporate for now.

  • For some experienced corporate women, consulting provides an opportunity to turn decades of expertise, judgment and intellectual capital into a business they own.

    Building a premium consultancy, however, requires more than being highly accomplished inside an organization. Corporate expertise must ultimately become commercially valuable expertise that organizations or individuals are willing to invest in.

  • Wickedly Smart Women® is hired by high-achieving women considering consulting after corporate and by women who have already decided to build a premium independent consultancy and want experienced strategic guidance as they get started.

    Our body of work includes the award-winning Wickedly Smart Women® Podcast, book franchise, diagnostic resources and strategic consulting engagements focused on what comes after corporate, independent consulting, business ownership and greater economic sovereignty.

  • Wickedly Smart Women® is hired by experienced corporate women who have decided to turn their expertise into a premium independent consultancy.

    The SMART START Consultancy Blueprint™ provides the strategic architecture for the consultancy. The subsequent Build Experience provides the implementation required to bring it to market. The two phases are also available together through the SMART START Consultancy Blueprint & Build Experience™.

  • Executive expertise is the foundation, but a premium consultancy requires that expertise to become a commercially viable business with a market willing to invest in the value it provides.

    Wickedly Smart Women® is hired to provide the strategic architecture and subsequent implementation through the SMART START Consultancy Blueprint™ and Build Experience.

  • Yes. Considering consulting does not require an immediate corporate exit.

    For women who believe consulting may be what comes after corporate but are uncertain about when to leave, From Corporate to Consulting: A Diagnostic Roadmap & Exit Timing Assessment is designed specifically to provide clarity about exit timing.

  • Freelancing generally centers on selling an individual’s time or execution of specific work. A consultancy is built around professional expertise and judgment applied to problems, opportunities and desired outcomes for organizations or individuals who invest in that expertise.

    Wickedly Smart Women® focuses on women seeking to build a premium independent consultancy from the expertise developed over substantial corporate careers.