Welcome to Brazen Careerist!

About Me

I’m Magnus. I am a life coach and communications strategist. As a life coach I help people to create balance in their lives and achieve their dreams. As a strategist I inspire creativity that generates business results. My life purpose is to enrich the world by empowering its creativity.

I live in London with my fiancee Isabel. I never tire of London and am convinced it is the finest city in the world: from walking in Hyde Park, to espressos in Soho, or some of the best restaurants in the world. There is no better city to eat in than London.

Cooking has become my main way of relaxing now. It used to be jumping up and down in nightclubs but I find the demands of my work mean that I need to relax and recharge in the evenings and weekends.

My favourite restaurant is Ciao Bella in Holborn; the most authentic local Italian in London. I have always had a great meal there. Next door to it is The Lamb. One of London’s finest pubs. I am particularly keen on pints of bitter and drag Isabel too often for her liking to The Nightingale which, despite being a car ride away, I have come to call my local. Slightly disturbing is that it usually frequented by rather beery middle-aged, middle class men. Don’t read too much into that!

Isabel is a daily inspiration to me. Half-Spanish, her passion and fire is a perfect antidote to the solid determination I have developed over the years. She ‘keeps me real’, on track, and on my toes.

I have two daughters, Alice, 15 and Olivia, 13. Being a father to them enriches me, and they are growing into two beautiful young ladies. Being a father is not without its moments but I try as hard as I can to be the best father I can, as well as an inspiration and guide to them.

My day job used to be EMEA Planning Director for Enfatico, the agency WPP set up to handle all of Dell’s communications. Along with half the agency in London I was made redundant last month. I’m now looking for my next gig. In the meantime I’m using my coaching skills to help people like me who have been made redundant.

In my free time I am working on a book which is a guide for people to help them fulfil their life purpose. I am passionate about encouraging people to develop themselves as much as they can. Our purpose in life is a life of purpose: it gives meaning and enriches the world for everyone. In the past I have worked with life coaches and also trained as a coach. I found the experience helpful but limited: living your life purpose requires you to focus on it every day. Sometimes working with coaches tends to make your personal development work episodic – focused around the next phone call – and not something you make happen every day. Coaching is also out of the reach of a lot of people. I owe a lot to life coaching though: it helped me find my purpose. My way of giving back is this blog and my book: which will make powerful insights, techniques and practices available to a wider audience.

I am lucky to have some great friends: Dany, Hamish, James, Kevin, Mark, Mich, and Peter are all worth a name-check. Thanks for being the great friends that you are. I’ll also include my sister Fiona in that list. We’ve grown closer as we’ve both gone through some difficult times in our lives at the same time, and grown richer for sharing our experiences. Not least the death of my mother in 2008, leaving my father in Scotland but he’ll be coming down south soon.

I am Scottish, and proud of it, although I could never live there again because it is too cold and the food there is generally still shocking. The Scots also have a tendency to be maudlin: I enjoy surrounding myself with positive high-energy people.

I hope that this description has given you a flavour of the man behind the blog. If you’d like to get in touch for any reason, hop over to the Contact Me page and leave me a message. If you’re motivated to get in touch: I’d love to hear from you. If you’re so inclined you can follow me on twitter – magnuswood.

I’ll leave you with my favourite quote by the wealthy socialite and singer Florence Foster Jenkins; a woman who was so determined, that she didn’t let a lack of talent stand in the way of public performance. Such was the charisma of the woman that, despite her complete lack of rhythm, pitch, tone, and overall singing ability, her performances were sell-out successes. As she said

“Many say that I can’t sing, but none can say I didn’t”.

Work History

• Enfatico, a WPP company
• EMEA Planning Director
• January 2008 to March 2009

• Core management in leading agency transition from existing agencies to Enfatico and building from a team of 5 to 60 in 9 months.

• Wunderman, a WPP company
• Director of Digital Strategy
• October 2007 to January 2008

• Recruited to drive digital work across the agency’s client base.

• RMG, a WPP company
• Planning Director
• April 2006 to October 2007

• Strategy & Planning Director across all clients - notably HSBC, Pfizer, Shell, Sky, Vodafone & Weight Watchers - and all planning on new business.

• Passion
• Planning Partner
• January 2004 to January 2006

• Founded the agency with two partners. Responsible for all planning and new business

Education

• Southampton University
• Psychology Bsc (Hons) 2i, Social Psychology, Cross-Cultural Psychology
• 1983 - 1986