How she retrained as a sustainability consultant to help tackle the climate crisis
Tamara Pitelen is the Christchurch-based co-founder and director of Greener Matters.
Tamara Pitelen had worked in the media industry for 25 years in jobs that took her all over the world, before her growing concern about the climate crisis led to a major career change.
The thought had been brewing for a few years as she started to tire of endless magazine deadlines. And looking back, she says, it was also around the time menopause was kicking in – a big transition time for many women.
The turning point came when Tamara’s best friend Erin phoned her with an idea to launch their own sustainability consultancy… and as the COVID pandemic sent the world into lockdown and everyone turned to Zoom, Tamara took the opportunity to throw herself into online study.
Tamara and Erin have since gone on to launch Greener Matters, a consultancy that helps businesses get started on their sustainability journey and takes them through the B Corp certification process.
In this episode, Tamara talks to host Jacqui Ooi about:
- Getting her start as a print journalist and working in different countries around the world
- The key steps she took to retrain as a sustainability consultant
- What it took to build a consultancy from scratch during a global pandemic
- How she managed the financial transition and her own self-doubt
- Her best tips and recommendations for aspiring career changers
Listen to this episode
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