There’s no shortage of redundancy advice. There’s a shortage of people willing to be honest about how hard it actually is
The thing that’s actually kept me moving? Other people in the same position. Honest conversations. Shared frustration. Someone else saying “yes, that’s exactly it”
Twenty-four years. One organisation. A career built on understanding what customers actually experience versus what businesses think they experience — and closing that gap.
I spent the bulk of my working life in financial services as a Customer Experience and Insight Manager, translating what real people said, felt and struggled with into decisions that actually changed things. Not presenting data into a void. Making it land. That meant influencing without authority, building the case, getting the right people in the room and keeping them accountable once they left it.
Then, at the start of 2026, it ended. Not with a dramatic falling-out. More a slow realisation that the chapter was closing before I was ready to close it.
What followed was the part nobody briefs you on. The structure disappearing overnight. The identity sitting slightly loose, like a coat that no longer quite fits. Also a guilt I hadn’t anticipated — the dismantling of something I’d believed for my entire career: that effort creates outcome. I’ve put serious effort into this search. I’m still going.
The thing that’s actually kept me moving? Other people in the same position. Honest conversations. Shared frustration. Someone else saying “yes, that’s exactly it” at the right moment. We pump each other’s tyres — and it turns out that matters more than any job board or career coach ever will.
The Now What exists because those conversations deserve a proper home. It’s built on years of understanding what people really need versus what they’re told they need.
Steve Fanning Founder, The Now What
