Five years after On Purpose: where are they now? With Nadia Schweimler

Five years after completing the On Purpose Associate Programme, we catch up with our April 2017 Fellows to find out what they are up to now. Today, we speak with Nadia Schweimler.

Can you tell us about your background and your career prior to On Purpose?

I like to say that I've sat in different chairs around the climate table. I’ve worked in consulting with PwC, where I was part of different government projects. I’ve worked for the UNFCCC Secretariat, on the side of intergovernmental organisations (IGOs). I’ve had the opportunity to look at the climate problem from a number of different perspectives. My main focus across most of my roles has been looking at international environmental policy, especially leading up to the Paris agreement. Here my main area of expertise was representing the views of the least developed nations and the Small Island States in the UN negotiations for the Paris Agreement.  

Why did you join the On Purpose Associate Programme?

It was 2016 and I was working at the UN Secretariat - then Brexit happened and Trump happened and I lost faith in my own role in policy making and in politics. I realised that the work that I and others had spent years on, was vulnerable to  political cycles which had very little to do with the climate question. I was also seeking to reinvent myself and learn how I could fit into a ‘post-Paris’ world, how I could build and use my skill set in a different way. And so I came to On Purpose - initially because I had very little business background and wanted to diversify my skill set. I also had an idea of becoming an entrepreneur and starting my own zero waste business. But while on the Programme, I found myself falling in love with systems change and working at the intersection between different entities to bring about change.

It's been 5 years since you completed the Associate Programme. What are you doing now?

I've spent most of the last few years looking at systems change interventions in the ‘hard to abate’ sectors (i.e., the sectors where net zero is especially difficult) where I have been building partnerships & coalitions in steel, construction, cement and commercial road transport. 

Last summer I transitioned to working on leadership and culture. Here I’ve been collaborating with C-suite and executive level leaders, such as from FTSE 5 energy companies, to look at their programmes around leadership and community. Essentially, I work with them on navigating the landscape of interiority of a leader to enable the landscape of exteriority to achieve more - thereby helping these leaders navigate the uncertainty of the challenges that sit at their feet. For example, supporting leaders with deepening skills like empathy and perspective seeking, allowing them to be stronger partners in decarbonisation collaborations with other value chain players. 

Can you tell us more about your placements?

My first placement was with Bonsucro, the NGO that created the ethical sugarcane standard of production. I worked directly for the CEO and COO, who were reviewing the organisation’s business model and value proposition. My main project was putting in place a customer development process to help Bonsucro understand what processes added value to their customers.

My second placement was with Project X, a corporate accelerator which helps organisations adopt sustainable innovations in their supply chains. I was managing FEED-X, a programme that was looking at the sustainable transformation of the feed industrial system (i.e., the food for our food). Here I was working with one of the world’s largest producers of salmon feed and focusing on how to source and scale up quickly alternative sources of ingredients to make the feed as sustainable as possible. Aside from my main project, I was also helping Project X with other bits, such as hiring other On Purpose Associates to join me and bringing on board new partners for our programme on sustainable vaccine cold chains!

What’s the most important thing you learnt during your year as an Associate?

I actually learned two things. Firstly, I learnt that I can do a good job by turning my hand to almost any problem if I put my mind to it. Going into a placement where you’re not hired to match one specific job or project, but come in with transferable skills, really gave me the confidence I needed to see that I could create meaningful impact in any organisation. Before joining the Associate Programme, I had always been a ‘specialist’ - a climate policy expert with a focus on UNFCCC negotiations, with a focus on particular negotiation streams and so forth. Coming into a placement and not knowing anything about the sector, the subject matter or the work, yet being able to apply my transferable skills to different problems and adding value, made me realise that I was going to find my way and make a difference wherever I go.

The second thing I learnt is that it’s really important to be yourself. By being part of the On Purpose community that was intentionally held with a very inclusive, generous and non judgemental container, I found the safety to be fully myself, and that has allowed me to want to express myself authentically wherever I go. Because that's what life is about, living your life and being yourself. Not being the person who is supposed to tick all the boxes and look in exactly this way or that way. And that is a deeply meaningful experience in a career to know that being yourself is just as important as what you know and how you do things.

What support did you get along the way?

My cohort was just amazing. The support that you get from each other, just from having the weekly practice of sharing where you are at and having a safe space to bring whatever is coming up for you - be it a struggle or an achievement - is unique. It was an incredibly special feeling to have a whole community around you. People with whom you shared the experience of doing something really brave with your life and making brave choices. We were all in it together, trying to find our edges in different ways and holding each other in this experience, which was truly transformational. 

How did you approach finding a job after the programme?

I was lucky in that my second placement, Project X, offered me a job straight after the placement finished. It was great that I found a placement that really aligned with my goals and with how I wanted to grow and what I was interested in and I feel very lucky for it!

What advice would you give to others in a similar situation?

I would say sit down with yourself and ask yourself: what am I passionate about? Or is this something I am still exploring?

Do I already have all of the skills and knowledge I need to progress towards the career I am looking for or are there specific areas I’m keen to develop where the Associate Programme can support me with? 

Another bit of advice would be to think about the direction you're envisioning yourself going towards. I’ve personally given up on 5 year plans, 12 month plans and so forth. Instead I have these 4 areas (I call them ‘buckets’) - leadership, systemic partnerships in climate, coaching & spiritual guidance and speaking - and by the end of my career I want to have something in each of these buckets. If an opportunity comes my way which will allow me to add skills or knowledge into one of the buckets, I will go for it. Rather than having a really fixed (career) path from which it is really easy to stray or to ‘fail’, I’ve given space to a more flexible approach, which allows me to gradually build up these different areas of expertise and skills. Eventually I will then become the person that is capable in all of these 4 areas.

So I’d encourage you to think about: What are your areas or buckets you want to fill? What are the skills and knowledge you don't yet have but want to build to do work in these chosen areas? And what steps can you take to help you contribute to those buckets?

Also: trust yourself. Listen to your gut and spend time reflecting on where you are and where you want to go. Life's too short to have a career where what you're doing doesn't feel good. Listen to yourself and follow your heart. 

You may want to consider a book called ‘The Surrender Experiment’ to help navigate living life in a more organic and less contrived way (but read it with a pinch of salt!).

What do you miss about your old career, and what don’t you miss?

I miss the comfort of being a total ‘expert’! With all of the projects I’ve been working on for the past 5 years, I’ve always been learning something new and challenging myself constantly. It's not as comfortable as being the person who knows a lot about one specific area or subject matter. But it's also exciting to always be learning something new and turning your hand to new areas. 

And on what I don’t miss: scarcity. My journey with On Purpose changed the paradigm of how I look at careers in general. It went from a place of scarcity to one of abundance. From one characterised by exclusiveness and competition and the idea that there's only so much good work to go around, to one where there are a million projects that need doing and a million people doing amazing work. To be able to collaborate and synergise, to complement and support, and to follow where there are good things - that’s part of the paradigm of social enterprise and On Purpose. But it's also a way of looking at the world where I don't feel like if you win, I lose but if you win I win and we all win - which is a really good place to be.