After more than 20 years working across events, marketing, and consulting on four continents, Ness Heckscher is doing what many professionals her age are contemplating: transitioning into retirement whilst building something meaningful on her own terms.

That "something" is writing—sharing the practical frameworks she's used to navigate career reinvention, building a consulting business, working internationally, and designing a life that prioritises freedom over status.

Why She Writes About Midlife Reinvention

Ness didn't set out to write books about career change. She set out to solve her own problems.

How do you leave a secure corporate role and build a consulting business? How do you work internationally without sacrificing flexibility? How do you monetise skills you didn't know were valuable? And how do you approach retirement without losing your sense of purpose?

She figured it out by doing it—spending nearly a decade living and working in the Middle East, building a freelance consulting practice, delivering major projects across multiple industries and eventually returning to Australia to design what comes next.

Now in her 50s and approaching retirement, Ness writes to help other professionals do the same: reinvent their careers, monetise their expertise and build second acts that are better than their first.

What She Brings to the Conversation

Ness has worked in sales, travel and tourism, sports marketing, events and freelance consulting. She's managed multi-million dollar projects, worked globally and learned what actually works when you're trying to change direction after 40.

The Midlife Reinvention Series bridges traditional career wisdom with today's realities. Ness combines 20+ years of experience with the practical challenges of the current landscape—AI transforming industries, hybrid and remote work creating new possibilities, contract work replacing permanent roles, and the very real stretches of time without guaranteed income.

She's lived it all: building a business before remote work was normalised, navigating long periods without contracts, adapting as technology reshapes entire industries. But here's what she's learned: the same forces creating uncertainty are also creating unprecedented opportunities. AI tools that can amplify your expertise. Remote work that removes geographic boundaries. Digital platforms that let you monetise skills in ways that weren't possible a decade ago.

These books show you how to use these changes to your advantage—building careers and lifestyles that are more flexible, more profitable and more aligned with how you actually want to live.

Whether readers want to consult, change careers, work remotely, monetise hidden skills or design a purposeful retirement, Ness has either done it herself or in the process of doing it.

Beyond the Books

Ness lives in Sydney with her partner and their two cats, Steve and Alan, who generously allow her to live in their house and occasionally assist with writing by sitting on the keyboard.

She's a storyteller, avid traveller, beach enthusiast and someone who knows exactly how to get an elephant to the 21st floor of a ballroom (ask her).

Ness writes for people navigating the same questions she asked herself: What's next? How do I get there? And can I actually pull this off? (Spoiler: you can.)