It’s now been two and a half years since I quit Wealth Management and started working for myself as a freelancer. 2021 was, undoubtedly, the best year so far. I wrote 115 articles for 36 clients, 28 articles for my blog, joined 5 podcasts as a guest, co-wrote and edited a 500-page textbook on sustainable finance as well as producing one (and a half) fintech magazine(s)! Yayy! (And phew!)
Here are my top three highlights of the year, thank you so much to everyone who helped me along the way. 🙏🙏🙏
1. Hannah’s Blog wins HeadlineMoney’s Blog of the Year 2021 🏆
To be honest, I still can’t believe it. I remember feeling so grateful and excited just to have been invited to the ceremony ... and the rest is a blur. Hannah’s Blog was up against some truly exceptional and experienced money bloggers. It’s a massive privilege and pleasure to join their ranks.
Since the award, I’ve approached my blog with renewed vigour and validation. I’m about the truth. The whole truth. And nothing but the truth. With such a prestigious recognition behind me, I’m determined to shine a light on greenwashers and expose injustices in our industry more than ever. I want to prove the judges right! 💪
2. Creating Fintech Finance’s EPIC magazine, Swashbucklers ☠
I’m SO proud to write for Fintech Finance. In 2020, Ali approached with an idea so wonderfully unique that it could only have come from him. The brief was to create a list of leading people in fintech. But it can’t be a list. It can’t be anything that even resembles a list. Probably it should be a pirate ship. And we’ll call it Swashbucklers. Mission accepted. 😎
Over the next eight months, we scouted out the best of the best. Not an easy task. And interviewed them. Not about tech. Or even finance. But about who they are as people. What their superpower would be, and we created a ship like no other. 25 articles later I’d exhausted every pirate pun in the thesaurus and made some INCREDIBLE new contacts. Many of whom went on to become my friends and clients.
… And a 2021 edition might be heading out soon. Watch this space! 🚀
3. Editing and co-writing the 500-page CBI Green and Sustainable Finance textbook with Simon Thompson 🌿
Probably the thing I am most proud of in my entire life. Between January and August 2021, CEO of the Chartered Banker Institute, Simon Thompson and I worked our socks off to produce edition four of the textbook. As a prestigious international course, there was a lot at stake for us to get this right. Our words have the power to redirect funds and help finance professionals make the right choices for the planet.
Simon has a really in-depth and academic approach to creating content. And me? Well, you know me, I’m as sweary and lary as they come. Our writing styles clashed and collided. As COP 26 rattled closer, every regulation and case study seemed to change as we wrote it. After adrenaline-raising quantities of work, we fired out this epic book into the world. It’s the maximum impact I could ever make. Literally couldn’t be prouder, or more honoured. 🙏
I'd like to say a huge thank you to all of my 60 wonderful clients who have commissioned work from me over the past years. Without your support and good humour, I wouldn't be able to write this blog.
Thank you! Thank you! 🙏🙏🙏