Corporate leader shares world beyond the boardroom

Rare glimpse of Lavery joining a photo subject
on the other side of the camera.
The photo is blurry because I took it.
RJ Peltz-Steele CC BY-NC-SA 4.0

Jersey (UK)-based corporate governance consultant Siobhan Lavery, when she's not calling the shots in the boardroom, is a brilliant photographer and travel writer, besides my dear friend, and I'm eager to share my enthusiasm for her work.

Lavery is virtually an anthropologist when on the road, loving to roll up her sleeves, literally, to immerse herself in the customs of indigenous people, from West Africa to Oceania. Having long kept handwritten travel journals, she is making use of her time now to share her adventures through both text and images.

Lavery has started transferring journals to her Odyssey Diary on Substack. Her writings recount not only the joys of exploring the world, but sometimes the drama of navigating a home culture of business and politics that doesn't value personal growth through absence from the office. She ultimately left her full-time position to start a consultancy. If you're stuck on the workaday hamster wheel, you will relate and might even be inspired.

Lavery meanwhile is publishing her spectacular photography from around the world at Odyssey, on Smugmug. There's lots to explore there. Images are filed by "Countries," "Photo Essays," and "Stories." Content dates to 2010 and covers the Alaska, the Arctic, Angola, Benin, Borneo, Chile, Ethiopia, Ghana, Greenland, Haiti, Iran, Ivory Coast, Jordan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova and Transnistria, Papua New Guinea, Romania, Tajikstan, Togo, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, and Uzbekistan.

In 2020, just before the pandemic struck, Lavery and I traveled for Carnival to Guinea-Bissau, which is not yet on the website. So I know she has more photos and stories yet to share.