VISHANNA PHAGOO

Moving to a different country will always be a challenge, especially if it's thousands of miles away from family and friends.

This is what author Katherine Ann Byam dealt with in 2009 when she first moved to the UK to pursue her career in Big Tobacco – a term used to refer to the largest companies in the tobacco industry.

The six largest tobacco companies are China National Tobacco Company, British American Tobacco, Philip Morris International, Imperial Brands, Altria Group, and Japan Tobacco International.

At the time, she held many roles and did jobs such as financing, internal audit, supply chain risk, project management and change management. Byam now works for her own self-titled company, and her brand and podcast Where Ideas Launch deals with career consultation.

"I provide consultancy services to small to medium enterprises on environmental, social and governance implementation, materiality assessments, and sustainability strategy. I also coach leaders on implementing change, either through group programmes or one-to-one. I run the courageous career club, a group coaching programme to support positive impact career transitions."

After having to celebrate a birthday in her 30s by herself in the winter of 2010, she started feeling depressed, and to process her feelings she started journalling as advised by her therapist at the time.

"I was excited to be in Europe, in the UK to be exact because it was after the financial crisis, so it was an interesting time. But in 2010, I became really depressed because it was my birthday which is in January and it was also winter. I remember thinking 'oh my God, why have I done this to myself? Why did I move to this cold place? Why did I do this?'"

With the intent of feeling comfortable with her decisions, Byam started writing and eventually finished her first book – The Naked Finger – that is yet to be published.

"This is a book about me being single and drifting through these experiences I was having in my life, my job at the time required me to travel all over the world and I was doing this as a single black woman so that brought lots of interesting experiences."

But since the writing fever infected her, she didn't stop there and wanted to help every one that felt the way she did 12 years earlier with her newly published book Do What Matters: The Purpose Driven Career Transition Guide.

"What I was going for with this book is something useful and well-researched, but still accessible, allowing the reader to feel like they're having a conversation with their slightly eccentric best friend. I wanted to write something that convinced people that they had the power to take action because I think a lot of us feel so overwhelmed at times."

Byam said the book is to invoke a sense of purpose in every one whether they be seniors or fresh out of school and get them to think outside of the norm when it comes to their careers. She said while pursuing her master's in business administration in France in 2015 it allowed her to expand her interes