This is for review purpose only. It is unlisted and unindexed on the internet
Meet Giselle
Giselle Goodwin is a UK-based researcher, writer, and speaker whose work explores the realities of women’s working lives. With a background in healthcare, entrepreneurship, and a PhD in women, work, and wellbeing, she brings academic insight and lived experience to conversations about equity, care, and the future of work.
A Life Steered by Questions, Not Titles
When Giselle Goodwin talks about her work, she doesn’t start with achievements or milestones. She begins with a feeling, that quiet, persistent urge to understand why women’s experiences at work often feel heavier than they should.
“I became increasingly aware of how often women’s careers, wellbeing and ambitions are constrained by structural pressures rather than individual shortcomings,”
It’s this awareness, more than any professional title, that shapes who she is today.
Her path has never been a straight line. It has been a series of reckonings, moments that asked her to pause, reassess, and choose a direction that aligned more closely with her values. Those questions, as much as her accomplishments, have defined her life’s work.
A Restless Beginning and an Unexpected Leap
Giselle’s journey didn’t begin with a business plan or a theory. It started on a holiday, with a book by Paul McKenna and a sense that life could be different. The advice was simple: decide what you want, write it down, and do it.
She returned home, resigned from her stable role as a Boots Pharmacy manager, and stepped into the unknown. “It was scary at the time,” she admits,
“but I had the benefit of nothing to lose and a job as a locum pharmacist while I got things going.”
That leap became the foundation of two businesses, one in recruitment and one in online pharmacy, both built, grown, and eventually sold over the course of nearly twenty years.
But beneath the success was a quieter story unfolding. Becoming both a mother and an entrepreneur showed her the limits of a system that depends on women stretching themselves beyond what is healthy or fair. It planted questions she would return to years later.
The Morning Everything Felt Too Heavy
There’s a moment Giselle often returns to her 35th birthday. Two small children, a growing business, and a to-do list that felt impossible. She woke up that morning feeling not celebrated, but depleted.
“I remember thinking I had no time for any fun and definitely no time to have a birthday. So what did it all mean?”
For years, she interpreted that exhaustion as a personal failing — not evidence of a wider system out of balance. The realisation that the strain wasn’t hers alone but structural became a turning point. It pushed her toward deeper study, first informally, then academically.
In 2022, she completed a PhD examining the structural forces shaping women’s experiences in the labour market. It wasn’t simply an academic pursuit; it was a way of making sense of her own life, and the lives of countless women who had been told to “balance better” rather than question the system itself.
“What ultimately inspired me was the desire to bridge the gap between evidence and everyday experience, I wanted to contribute to a clearer, research-led understanding of why so many women feel overextended, under-supported and undervalued.”
Work That Makes Space for Women’s Real Lives
Today, Giselle’s work centres on research, writing, and public speaking on women, work, and wellbeing. She doesn’t frame her work as advocacy in the corporate sense but rather as an effort to bring clarity, evidence, and compassion to the conversations that shape policy and culture.
She is contributing research to national discussions on modernising employment, including an upcoming invitation to the All-Party Parliamentary Group. Her goal is plainspoken and powerful: to ensure that the future of work is grounded in the realities of the people living it.
“I am particularly focused on ensuring that the future of work supports wellbeing, values care and enables people to participate fully across all parts of their lives,”
Her book, Can Women Really Have It All?, reflects the same commitment. It’s a blend of academic insight, personal experience, and a grounded exploration of what “having it all” really means in a world that often oversimplifies women’s choices.
Designing a Future That Doesn’t Ask Women to Be Superhuman
Giselle’s vision for the future isn’t framed in grand declarations. It’s built on practical steps, evidence informing policy, honest conversations replacing empty narratives, and systems redesigned to recognise care as central to human life.
She continues to write on Substack and LinkedIn, fostering conversations that resonate with women navigating midlife transitions. She is also planning retreats in Portugal for women seeking clarity as they step into new chapters of their careers.
Her work is, at its core, about building a world where women don’t have to shrink themselves, stretch themselves thin, or carry invisible burdens to succeed.
A Closing Reflection
When asked how she stays grounded in the face of the heavy topics she studies, Giselle returns to the principles she teaches. “Balance is something we continually cultivate,” she says. Her EMPOWER LIFE framework designed to help women navigate uncertainty with clarity and intention is something she uses in her own life as well.
Her story is not one of relentless pursuit, but of returning. Returning to values. Returning to evidence. Returning to the question of what kind of world we want work to belong to, and what kind of lives we want women to lead inside it.
Be Featured in The Real Edit!
Every story has the power to shape how we see innovation, leadership, and purpose. If you’re a founder, creator, executive, or changemaker with a journey worth telling , we’d be honored to help you share it.
To inquire about being featured:
Email us at: info@realedit.site
Follow The Real Edit for more stories:
