Preparing, Learning, Becoming: Ali Spooner’s Journey Toward Midlife Power  

Ali Spooner is navigating midlife with intent. After two decades in corporate life, followed by roles across charity, small business and startups, she has chosen to approach the years ahead with reflection, clarity and intention. Her story is one of steady navigation, resilience, and an emerging confidence that the best is still to come.

Ali’s professional life began in the late 1990s with Procter & Gamble. What started as an internship turned into 18 years of progression across HR, marketing, and consumer insights. It was a foundation that developed her skills, exposed her to international teams, and gave her an enduring belief in the value of people and collaboration.

But Ali’s story is not only about what she achieved inside a global business. It is also about how she responded to change, how she rebuilt when confidence faltered, and how she found her way back to the strengths she once overlooked. Today, as she builds her own coaching practice, she sees this time not as a winding down, but as a preparation for what lies ahead.

The Early Climb

Ali joined P&G in 1997, aged 19, after completing a business administration diploma. She had once considered a career in education but business offered a broader path, and when she secured an internship at P&G, she knew she had found an opportunity worth pursuing.

Her father was sceptical when she chose HR as her starting point. “He told me it was all hiring and firing,” she recalls. “But I saw it differently because it was about people, development, and culture.”

A move into marketing followed, first as an advertising secretary for the UK haircare division. From there she progressed through global roles, including one of her favourites: working on Max Factor’s international design team. She remembers the creativity, the collaboration, and the sense of being trusted as part of a high performing group. Those early roles gave her a grounding in the organisation and introduced her to the human side of corporate life.

“For the first time, I wasn’t just the person supporting others. I was contributing. That shift was significant and it showed me I belonged in the room.”

Her career developed further when she moved into consumer and shopper insights, where she combined analytical skills with commercial understanding. It was a role that suited her curiosity about people and markets, and for the most part, she thrived.

Yet large organisations are not without their challenges. Structural changes, new leaders, and shifting team dynamics brought times when Ali felt misaligned. One role proved such a poor fit that she asked to step back. “It was intended as a promotion, but I knew it wasn’t right. Admitting that took courage, but it taught me that careers are not always linear. Sometimes the braver move is to change direction.”

That readiness to re-evaluate would become a theme in her story.

The Pause and the Healing

Ali’s final posting at P&G tested her in ways she had never anticipated. Under a leadership style that consistently undermined rather than supported, her confidence began to erode. “It became difficult to separate constructive challenge from something more damaging,” she reflects. “I became so anxious that I could barely function properly.”

The strain eventually showed. One morning she arrived at the office, placed her laptop on her desk, and experienced a panic attack. “It was a physical response to the toxic environment I was experiencing,” she recalls. With encouragement and support from a colleague, and her direct manager she went home and remained signed off for six months.

That time was for rest and recovery. Anxiety was ever-present, and she masked it carefully on school runs before returning home to seek distraction. Sometimes it was colouring intricate posters, sometimes gardening, sometimes simply finding quiet. All of it helped create moments of stillness when her mind was loudest.

When Ali felt well enough to return to work she took redundancy. “I had loved so much of my career there, but I knew it would never feel the same again.”

Experiments and Lessons

Leaving P&G brought relief, but also sadness. What followed was a period of experimentation. At times, Ali found herself questioning whether she would ever return to work that felt aligned. “I moved across industries and down salary bands. I spectacularly worked my way down the career ladder until I hit minimum wage. Looking back, I realised I was under valuing myself and my salary reflected that. At the time I thought I was just trying new things,” she says.

Yet these roles were far from wasted. In charity, she developed empathy for donors and families at difficult moments. In recruitment, she gained commercial acumen and sales discipline. Each setting added to a bank of skills she would later draw on.

A more deliberate turning point came through coaching. Initially, she sought support as a working mother, then invested in deeper personal coaching. The impact was significant. For years she had downplayed her natural strengths; harmony, empathy, kindness, considering them less valuable than more analytical or strategic traits. Coaching helped her see them differently.

“It was the first time I recognised that those qualities were not soft skills to be hidden. They were my superpowers and shaped how I worked with people and what I could offer,” she explains.

Ali began to feel proud of the attributes she had once minimised. The power of authenticity began to take root.

Editor’s Reflection

Ali’s story demonstrates what can happen when preparation meets reflection. She is approaching midlife with clarity, recognising her strengths, investing in herself, and choosing authenticity.

There is something quietly instructive in her journey. Every role, even those that seemed temporary or ill-fitting, contributed something lasting. Periods of uncertainty were not wasted, but became part of the foundation she now builds on. And the qualities once dismissed as secondary; empathy, kindness, harmony, are the ones she carries forward most proudly.

Ali represents a growing cohort of professionals who are choosing to view midlife differently and not as an ending, but as an opening. Her story is a reminder that the years ahead can be navigated with courage and foresight and that planning and developing through the next iteration is as valuable a stage as arriving.

Me/Redefined

Ali’s experience illustrates why preparation matters. Without space to reflect, confidence can falter and careers can stall. With it, employees can reframe their strengths and move forward with renewed clarity.

Me/Redefined provides that space. It is a structured online career and life coaching programme for employers to offer their people in midlife helping them pause, take stock, and decide what they want from the next stage. For some, this means adjusting responsibilities or hours. For others, it may mean renewal, recommitment, or entirely new challenges.

By offering Me/Redefined, companies give employees the tools to prepare rather than react. The result is longer, more fulfilling careers and stronger organisational performance.

Explore more at Me/Redefined