It started with Peter, in a harbourside café in Neos Marmaras. He was 54, with 25 years in senior logistics, and he’d just been shown the door after a takeover. He didn’t need another job. He needed someone to show him that what he knew could become a business of his own. By the end of the afternoon (we’d switched coffee for wine) he could see it.
Peter isn’t unusual. Every restructure, every acquisition, every “we’re going in a different direction” turns experienced people out of jobs they were good at. The usual advice is to polish the CV and go again. Plenty of them are finished with that, and I don’t blame them.
Here’s what has changed. AI has taken away a lot of the grunt work that used to need a team: the research, the drafting, the admin, the first version of almost anything. One experienced person with a laptop can now run a business that would have needed an office and a handful of staff ten years ago.
What AI can’t supply is judgment. Knowing which problem actually matters. Hearing what a client won’t say out loud. Spotting the deal that’s about to go wrong. That comes from decades of doing the work, and it’s exactly what older professionals have. The tools got cheaper. The judgment didn’t.
So this is a good time to become an Executive Nomad, and it’s why I’m building this beyond one country. The problem isn’t British, or American, or European. Experienced people everywhere are being told their choice is another job or retirement. There’s a third option, and I’d like it to have a name people recognise wherever they are.
That name is Executive Nomad.
Jamie Sylvian, founder