When you come from a classic employee background and you've never seen anything beyond 9-5 jobs in your family or among your friends and colleagues, it's hard NOT to assume that going freelance, becoming a solopreneur, or building a portfolio career is a risky gamble.
I, and I suspect many of my peers, grew up believing that finding a stable job that stimulates you intellectually, aligns with your social impact values, and provides a solid income is the ultimate professional goal. Achieve that, and you're set for life.
The seismic shifts in international development funding have thoroughly dismantled that assumption. Finding stable positions in the sector has always been challenging, particularly within nonprofit organisations and philanthropic foundations. But with enough patience, deepening experience, and a well-cultivated network, landing a role was ultimately achievable.
That's no longer the case. The near-total collapse of USAID as a stable employer, and the ripple effects across its grantees and advisory organisations, have fundamentally changed the landscape, compounded by shrinking bilateral and multilateral funding globally.
So am I saying the portfolio career is the answer? Not at all. What I am saying is this: by diversifying your income streams across services and sectors, you also diversify your risk.
A significant portion of my income comes from strategic consulting around collaboration and strategy development in education and migration. My main clients have longer-term contracts, but several won't renew, partly because projects are naturally reaching their end, and partly due to funding constraints. That reality doesn't destabilise me the way it would if consulting were my only source of income.
Because I also have a second major income stream: our small hotel here in Greece, which generates a steady yearly revenue. Yes, there are risks inherent in tourism too, geopolitical instability that disrupts travel, or another global health crisis like COVID. But it's not my family's sole financial lifeline.
Some people find it hard to imagine working across two sectors as different as global development and hospitality. Personally, I love it. It pulls me out of my social impact bubble and into real conversations with people from entirely different walks of life, people who show up happy because they're on holiday. But beyond the human richness of it, the combination also gives me something more profound: intellectual and creative breadth.
In consulting, I tend to operate through a fairly narrow lens of strategy, funding, and systems. Running a hotel calls on a completely different set of capacities: hospitality, operations, human connection, problem-solving on the fly. This variety keeps me sharp and genuinely energised.
We humans carry a far wider range of skills than most jobs ever ask us to use, and the portfolio life lets me actually use them.
There's also the question of time and rhythm. Having genuine flexibility in how I structure my days allows me to work in ways that suit my energy, my creativity, and my life. That's not a small thing.
The impact investors in this readership will recognise the underlying logic: don't put all your eggs in one basket.
Portfolio diversification applies to careers just as much as it does to assets.
In my career transition cohorts and one-on-one with mentees, we regularly challenge the assumption that employment is safe and freelancing is risky. When you see how long it now takes for highly experienced, well-connected professionals to find a new position, and the mental and financial toll it takes, that assumption deserves serious scrutiny.
My own portfolio career was built somewhat accidentally. The move to Greece, leaving my 9-5 behind, and building out consulting, proposal review, and mentoring income streams over three years while the hotel provided a baseline, it evolved organically. The lesson I draw from it: start with a safe base, then experiment, test, and build incrementally.
My cost of living on a Greek island is vastly different from what it was in central Zürich with two kids. But I've seen people make this work in higher-cost contexts too, when the foundations are set up thoughtfully.
The portfolio career comes with its own pressures and uncertainties, and so does the "safe" job, especially now. The question worth asking is: which kind of risk are you actually more equipped to manage?