Natasha westover
Coaching and Business Support
My Story
Hey Lady!
My Career History
I’m Natasha, originally from the south of England, lived 30 years in London and now living my dream life, (literally!) back on the south coast of England.
I never really had a plan for my life or career. I knew the basics, leave home, move to London, go to university and enjoy life. I didn’t know when I left home at 18 what I wanted in life. It took me finding my feet in London to build an interesting and lucrative career, whilst discovering my love of travel, people and, of course, self development!
I guess I always thought I would be successful – but I couldn’t give you my definition of what a successful life looked like.
To be honest, I was taught a lot of useful stuff when I was young, how to work harder than the rest, how to think on my feet and be a problem solver, how to morph into what was required in any given situation. This made me a great team player and I was massively employable.
Fast forward 10 years into my career and I was a little stuck. On paper, life was good, but I was unfulfilled and couldn’t help wondering, ‘is this it?’
I entered the dark days of feeling low but somehow knew I was the only one who could make sense of it. The only one to find a route out, a route to fulfilment.
From a proud working class background, when my parents and their friends had worked so hard to give their children the best start in life, I had the tools to make money, be a great employee, but I had no role models for a living a fulfilled life, because surviving and providing is not always a fulfilled life.
You can imagine, no one spoke of feeling low because they were unfulfilled, and there was certainly no mention of mentors, coaches etc.
This moment was pivotal in my life and led me into the bright world of self development. Little did I know that going in search of fulfilment would lead to me tripling my income, paying off all my debt, including my mortgage, before the age of 45, working with the most interesting organisations and striving to add value to them and solve their problems.
In the last few years, I’ve stepped away from working full time for one employer and have the freedom to work across different start ups, charities, and SME’s. I work in finance, leadership, strategy and recruitment as a consultant.
I started this website to help myself. I wanted a place to pull all my learning resources together from my 30 year career. I know, had I followed some of the tools and resources on this site, I would have hit my six figure salary, worked for the type of organisations I really want to help, paid of my debt much earlier in life.
Natasha Westover
testimonials
Working with Natasha helped me fast track my finance career in just a few short months. Not only did I progress my career but I also starting enjoying my day job much more.
Sarah – London
I wasn’t sure on my next career move so decided to get a coach and Natasha was recommended to me via a colleague. We explored my experience to date, what I enjoyed in my career and how to incorporate more of that in my future work. It was great fun!
Belinda – London
Why do I help women in particular?
Throughout my 30s I started getting marketed to in a big way regarding women and their finances and careers – thanks google!
Having spent most of my career seeing payroll and more recently sitting on boards of companies, I know first hand that companies don’t simply pay for your worth. You need to ask for it, and a lot of women don’t ask, including me!
As I moved into recruitment, I also saw the disparity between how women and men interview for senior positions, even how a women fills out a psychometric test compared to a man will astound you – or not!
So, I didn’t just have clues to tell me women and men were different in the workplace, I had solid data I couldn’t ignore.
I looked at my own financial story and projected my financial shortfall facing me for my retirement. I had still time to do something about it and I committed to it. Firstly, by paying my mortgage off, then by making payments into my pension a priority but alongside this committing to self development and continuous learning so I had more and more skills to offer my clients.
Although I care more about how I make my money, I still care about my money.
But here are a few stats to explain why championing women is important to me apart from the fact I only have women in my immediate family:
- Women earn less than men – 90% compared to that of men (Source: ONS)
- There are less women in leadership roles – FTSE 100 23.1% of top execs are women (Source: Hampton-Alexander Review 2019)
- Women are financially less equipped for retirement – by the age of 60, on average, women have £100k less in there pension than men (Source: Pensions Policy Institute)
All my life, I have worked hard and watched women around me work hard, men too, but I navigated a way through to career, financial and mental health well being. Here, on this website, I show you how I did that and offer others the opportunities I was afforded. Yes lady, we can live a life of luxury, until the end!
My Books
