Introduction: Sometimes, the most important career changes begin quietly, with someone giving you the space to explore what you might be capable of before you fully see it yourself.
When Teny Casal joined the Equilibrium by BCC Mentoring Programme in 2020, she was successful in her role in executive search, but unsure how to turn her ideas, strengths, and ambitions into something tangible. Through her mentoring partnership with Nigel Brown, Headmaster of the The English College in Prague – Anglické gymnázium, she gradually began building a completely new professional path, one that eventually led her to launch her own communication consultancy.
Teny Casal (Mentee)
1. What made you apply for the Equilibrium Mentoring Programme, and what were you hoping to gain from the experience?
I’d been at my previous company for about a year and genuinely liked it there: good team, interesting work, people I respected. But I had this nagging feeling that I wasn’t making the most of my potential. I had ideas about where I could add more value, things that would have been beneficial both for the company and personally fulfilling for me, I just couldn’t translate that into anything concrete or advocate for it with much confidence.
What I was hoping to gain from the programme was a thinking partner outside my immediate environment, someone with no stake in the outcome, who could help me get out of my own head and figure out what the next step looked like. Spoiler: I got that, and then some.
2. At that stage in your career, what was the biggest challenge or uncertainty you were navigating professionally?
The main challenge was internal more than external. I knew I had things to offer beyond what my role formally asked of me, but I couldn’t articulate it clearly enough to do anything useful with that feeling. And underneath that was a question I kept avoiding: was what I wanted actually possible where I was, or did I need to look somewhere else entirely?
3. What made your mentoring relationship with Nigel so impactful for you personally and professionally?
What made Nigel specifically good for me was the combination of practical and human. On the practical side, he didn’t just offer advice. He actively looked for real opportunities and put me forward for them. The project that ended up changing everything came directly from him seeing something in me and deciding to act on it. On the human side, he helped me explore without feeling guilty about it.
The questions I was sitting with weren’t always neat professional questions, they crossed into “but what do I actually want” territory fairly quickly, and Nigel held space for that while also being direct enough to challenge me when I was going in circles. He helped me see things less black and white, which sounds simple, but at that point in my life, it was quite a lot.
4. Was there a particular moment or opportunity during the programme that changed the way you saw your own work and future direction?
Midway through the programme, Nigel invited me to work on a project for the English College in Prague. They needed to attract international teaching staff and wanted something that would help candidates picture their life there. A real sense of what it would feel like, not just a job description. I interviewed staff, shaped their stories, and put together a booklet that brought the experience of living and working in Prague to life for someone reading it from abroad.
What shifted was how I understood my own work. I’d been describing what I did as “writing” or “research,” but this project showed me it was something more specific – finding the human thread in something and making it legible and compelling for the right audience. Two years later, they came back to update the materials, which confirmed that what started as an experiment had become something real and valuable.
5. Looking back today, how do you see the long-term impact of Equilibrium on your career journey?
Two things happened during the programme running in parallel. Internally, I got a promotion and a pay raise and started working directly with clients and leading my own projects. At the same time, I opened my trade licence and started taking on freelance work on the side, with the ECP recruitment booklet as my first project and a slowly growing portfolio after that. By the time the programme ended, I had built enough confidence, proof, and clarity about what I was actually doing that within a year I left my employed role and launched my own consultancy.
I continued collaborating with my previous company in a marketing capacity for a while after that, which I think is the nicest possible ending to that chapter. Almost five years later, I still run my consultancy, working with international organisations and senior leaders on LinkedIn and communication strategy.
The impact of the Equilibrium programme was gradual. I just kept taking the next sensible step until one day I looked up and realised I’d ended up somewhere completely different from where I’d started.
Interested in learning more about the Equilibrium Mentoring Programme, or just eager to get stuck in and start your own journey?
Equilibrium 16th edition applications for mentors and mentees are now open and you can apply at https://bccequilibrium.cz/#_apply