“Be brave and try things out”

“How did I get where I am? Bear with me…”

If you sit down to talk career journeys with May Ho CMgr FCMI, an educator and entrepreneur, you may need to make a cuppa and get comfortable first. She’s had an incredible journey, full of twists and turns.

First, there’s her education. After taking an initial degree in graphic design at Central Saint Martins, she went on to earn a master’s in archeological site management at University College London and then a second master’s in sustainable leadership at the University of Cambridge.

• “They don’t just want a degree, they want to make a difference”

The subjects may vary radically, but they’re linked by a couple of common threads, including a blend of the theoretical with the practical.

May is committed to gaining knowledge. “I’m a lifelong learner,” she says, linking that trait to an independent streak that started when she was a teenager.

“When I was 14, my parents sent me to the UK alone to study in a boarding school,” she adds. “Since then, I’ve always been happy to explore on my own. I’m interested in the interrelations between things I study, which are often things others aren’t looking at. And I’m always experimental. It’s about being very open-minded, not following the norm, and taking bits from everywhere.”

A varied career

May’s intuitive approach applies to her career path, too. This has been equally varied – a mix of seeing what opportunities are there, tapping into her enthusiasms, linking those to what society needs and following her nose.

May started her career at Thomson Reuters, focusing on client success around intellectual property. She then went on to oversee corporate social responsibility programmes to do with volunteering and giving; worked at Gartner on client success, equality, diversity and inclusion initiatives and employee engagement; worked at scale-ups and start-ups; and created her own consultancy, artwhich – initially to help businesses embed sustainability and to equip business leaders with the capacities to build a better world.