Episode 22
Beyond Palatable: A Manifesto For Unapologetic Women
Guest post by Sophie Jane Lee is a voice and visibility consultant, journalist, founder of Electric Peach, and the author of Beyond Palatable: A Manifesto for Unapologetic Women out now, published by Luath Press Why I Walked Away from Corporate Marketi...
Irish Tech News Audio Articles · Simon Cocking
March 31, 20268m 43s
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Show Notes
Guest post by Sophie Jane Lee is a voice and visibility consultant, journalist, founder of Electric Peach, and the author of Beyond Palatable: A Manifesto for Unapologetic Women out now, published by Luath Press
Why I Walked Away from Corporate Marketing, Beyond Palatable explained
For ten years, I worked inside the engine room of modern marketing.
Major brands. High-pressure agency environments. Campaigns built to move people at scale, at speed, and often at all costs. By every conventional measure, it was going well.
Then I started paying closer attention to what I was actually doing.
The Persuasion Machine
Marketing has always been about persuasion. That's not new. What is new is the sophistication and the subtlety with which that persuasion now operates.
It's no longer just about selling a product. It's about shaping identity, manufacturing desire, and engineering the feeling that something is missing from your life until you buy the thing that fills it. I know this because I was part of building the persuasion machine. After a while, it started to consume my life.
The people I worked with in corporate weren't bad actors. Most were sharp, motivated, and genuinely trying to do good work. But the system itself has one primary directive: growth at all costs. When commercial outcomes take precedence over everything else, the gap between influence and ethics closes.
When the Career Works But the Work Doesn't
From the outside, my career looked enviably good. I climbed the agency ladder fast, had recognisable clients and a skill set that the market rewards well. But there was a persistent internal question I kept pushing aside: Do I actually believe in what I'm doing?
That's a harder question to sit with than most people will admit, particularly in environments where pace is celebrated, which often leads to no time for reflection.
Over time, I became increasingly disconnected and exhausted, reaching for anything that would 'take the edge off'. I was miserable, despite having done everything 'right' to build the career I thought I desired.
It all came to a head one day in spring 2017, when I had one of those sliding-door moments that changed the trajectory of my entire career.
I met a woman through a networking group, hit it off, and bonded over our shared belief that the marketing industry needs reform, and decided to start our own agency together to use communication tools to grow businesses committed to positive impact.
That summer, I quit my corporate career and started Electric Peach, a brand storytelling agency for impact-driven businesses.
What Leaving Actually Costs You
Stepping away from corporate culture isn't just a career decision; it's a psychological one. It's deeply entwined with identity, and for me, the transition was extremely rocky. Who was I without the flashy title and well-known brand clients? How on earth do I run a business, particularly one that is committed to doing things differently, with no blueprint?
If you choose to make this leap, you're not only leaving behind structure and a guaranteed salary. You're leaving a system that has been defining success for you—progression, status, external validation—and stepping into a space where you have to define it yourself.
That's genuinely uncomfortable. For me, it meant sitting with some blunt questions:
What does meaningful work actually look like?
What should communication be for?
And what kind of impact do I want my work to have?
Building Electric Peach
Electric Peach was my answer to those questions. Not a rejection of business or growth, but a different approach to both.
The core principle is straightforward: communication should create clarity, not confusion. It should build trust, not manufacture dependency. And it should respect the audience, not exploit them.
In practice, that means working with founders to articulate what they genuinely stand for, building messaging that's honest rather than over-engineered, and creating visibility that's sustainab...
Why I Walked Away from Corporate Marketing, Beyond Palatable explained
For ten years, I worked inside the engine room of modern marketing.
Major brands. High-pressure agency environments. Campaigns built to move people at scale, at speed, and often at all costs. By every conventional measure, it was going well.
Then I started paying closer attention to what I was actually doing.
The Persuasion Machine
Marketing has always been about persuasion. That's not new. What is new is the sophistication and the subtlety with which that persuasion now operates.
It's no longer just about selling a product. It's about shaping identity, manufacturing desire, and engineering the feeling that something is missing from your life until you buy the thing that fills it. I know this because I was part of building the persuasion machine. After a while, it started to consume my life.
The people I worked with in corporate weren't bad actors. Most were sharp, motivated, and genuinely trying to do good work. But the system itself has one primary directive: growth at all costs. When commercial outcomes take precedence over everything else, the gap between influence and ethics closes.
When the Career Works But the Work Doesn't
From the outside, my career looked enviably good. I climbed the agency ladder fast, had recognisable clients and a skill set that the market rewards well. But there was a persistent internal question I kept pushing aside: Do I actually believe in what I'm doing?
That's a harder question to sit with than most people will admit, particularly in environments where pace is celebrated, which often leads to no time for reflection.
Over time, I became increasingly disconnected and exhausted, reaching for anything that would 'take the edge off'. I was miserable, despite having done everything 'right' to build the career I thought I desired.
It all came to a head one day in spring 2017, when I had one of those sliding-door moments that changed the trajectory of my entire career.
I met a woman through a networking group, hit it off, and bonded over our shared belief that the marketing industry needs reform, and decided to start our own agency together to use communication tools to grow businesses committed to positive impact.
That summer, I quit my corporate career and started Electric Peach, a brand storytelling agency for impact-driven businesses.
What Leaving Actually Costs You
Stepping away from corporate culture isn't just a career decision; it's a psychological one. It's deeply entwined with identity, and for me, the transition was extremely rocky. Who was I without the flashy title and well-known brand clients? How on earth do I run a business, particularly one that is committed to doing things differently, with no blueprint?
If you choose to make this leap, you're not only leaving behind structure and a guaranteed salary. You're leaving a system that has been defining success for you—progression, status, external validation—and stepping into a space where you have to define it yourself.
That's genuinely uncomfortable. For me, it meant sitting with some blunt questions:
What does meaningful work actually look like?
What should communication be for?
And what kind of impact do I want my work to have?
Building Electric Peach
Electric Peach was my answer to those questions. Not a rejection of business or growth, but a different approach to both.
The core principle is straightforward: communication should create clarity, not confusion. It should build trust, not manufacture dependency. And it should respect the audience, not exploit them.
In practice, that means working with founders to articulate what they genuinely stand for, building messaging that's honest rather than over-engineered, and creating visibility that's sustainab...