The manuscript is ready.

A one-employer career is a rope. It can carry you a long way, but if it snaps, there’s nothing underneath. This book shows readers how to weave a net instead.

The book

Millions of experienced professionals have built real expertise inside one job title, and carry all their career risk in one place. A restructure, a new boss or a single email can stop their income overnight.

Your Safety Net is a step-by-step guide to building several credible income streams from the expertise they already have: fractional roles, advisory work, consulting, board seats, teaching and speaking. It isn’t a book about quitting. Readers can stay employed for years, or for good. The point is that one employer is never their only option.

It is written for professionals a decade or more into their careers, senior leaders weighing fractional or board work, independent consultants who want more stability, and people returning after a break, with a dedicated chapter on why this matters even more for women.

What’s ready

• The complete manuscript: 24 chapters in six parts, in UK English
• A companion workbook with exercises for every part
• The Portfolio Career Scorecard: a nine-question self-assessment already live on this site, with a printable version
• A ninety-minute workshop and keynote built on the book, delivered to experienced professionals and Executive MBA cohorts
• A full proposal and sample chapters, available on request

Structure

Platform

Catherine writes Unboxed, a weekly newsletter on portfolio careers, and teaches negotiation, networking and personal branding at IMD, EHL, the University of St Gallen, emlyon business school and EPFL, giving the book a direct route to executive education audiences across Europe.

Comparable titles

The book sits alongside these titles, with a sharper focus on senior professionals, keeping the job, and the commercial mechanics of offers, pricing and contracts:

• The Portfolio Life by Christina Wallace (2023)
• The Squiggly Career by Helen Tupper and Sarah Ellis (2020)
• Working Identity by Herminia Ibarra (2003)

The author

Catherine Canales is a commercial leader with nearly three decades of international experience in life sciences, a three-time Chief Commercial Officer, and the founder of NoGap and ChiliPink. She teaches at five European business schools, works in five languages and lives in Barcelona. She doesn’t just write about portfolio careers. She runs one.