Fareham entrepreneur thanks her 'portfolio career' for allowing her to flourish

Annelies James, who previously worked as a lecturer at South Downs College and Solent University, left her teaching career to work for herself after feeling she was put into a box and wasn’t able to use all her skills at once.

Now, instead of running a business that offers one thing, she uses all of her skills to provide several services, including personal branding, video production and event hosting.

She calls it a portfolio career.

She produces several podcasts, including Colleagues Getting Coffee, in which she sits down with business leaders and entrepreneurs to share their success stories and Ask Annelies, in which she shares her own business tips and advice.

Her approach to business is to be as real and ‘human’ as possible and to build meaningful relationships rather than forced ones.

This was one of the reasons she launched her Make it Personal question cards, which are a pack of 100 cards with a series of questions that can be used while networking, while catching up with friends or even for self-reflection.

The idea was to get people engaging in meaningful conversations rather than small talk to get each other thinking and add value to the relationship.

She said: ‘We don’t allow ourselves time to reflect, we get blinded with social media and other places. The purpose in life to happiness and success is to know yourself and to love yourself.

‘It’s about going further than just “how are you?” Better questions lead to honest chat, which leads to trust.’

Some of her other talents include event hosting and she has a long list of events that she has hosted, including the Winchester half-marathon and the Southampton Business Expo this month.