Strategic Pauses for Faster Progress with Sophie Devonshire

In this episode of Time to Press Pause, Ellen Williams sits down with Sophie Devonshire, CEO of The Marketing Society and bestselling author of Superfast: Lead at Speed, to talk about why strategic pauses are the fastest way to better decisions, clearer direction, and more sustainable momentum. 

Sophie shares her “squiggly career” from P&G and Coca-Cola to founding and selling an e-commerce company, moving overseas, and writing Superfast. 

You’ll hear how she builds micro-pauses into projects (pre-mortem, midpoint check, fast feedback), uses the “soak period” when navigating a transition, and why community and coffee chats are non-negotiable when you land somewhere new. 

You’ll learn: 

• How to slow down to speed up (and avoid headless-chicken mode)
• A simple cadence for year / mid-year / monthly reflection that actually sticks
• The “100 coffees” playbook to build a real network (friends, not just contacts)
• How to frame a break as a “strategic pause” so ambitious teams buy in

Transcript

Transcript

 

 Welcome to Time to Press Pause: Real-Life Stories from the C-Suite. I’m your host, Ellen Williams, CEO of The Salient Strategist. 

Today we’re talking about how life has multiple pauses, not just the big ones we tell stories about, but the small, everyday ones.

My guest is Sophie Devonshire, CEO of The Marketing Society and bestselling author of Superfast: Lead at Speed. She also co-authored LoveWork with leadership expert Ben Renshaw, a Season 1 guest on this podcast. Sophie is an experienced business leader, entrepreneur, and marketer. She’s worked with Procter & Gamble and Coca-Cola, founded and sold an award-winning e-commerce business, and cares deeply about connecting ideas and people to help leaders shape the future of business. As a self-described “impatient accelerator,” she focuses on pace and purpose in business.

Ellen:
Sophie, welcome to Time to Press Pause. I’m so happy to have you here today.

Sophie Devonshire:
It’s brilliant to be here—I’m really interested in this topic.

Eellen:
I’d love to hear your Press Pause story. Please share it with us.

Sophie:
There have been a few pauses in what I’d call a squiggly career. My friend Helen Tupper, with Sarah Ellis, wrote Squiggly Careers—a great description because careers are rarely linear.

I started my career at Procter & Gamble in brand management, almost by accident, and immediately fell in love—with the way the business worked, with marketing, and with how brands can change things. I’m now CEO of The Marketing Society, so that passion never left. I also fell in love with someone who later became my husband, and life choices matter as much as career choices. He didn’t love his work as much as I loved mine and eventually shifted careers into the foreign office, which took us overseas. Moving together meant I had opportunities to change direction—hence the “squiggly” path.

I moved from brand management at P&G and Coca-Cola to consulting, then started my own e-commerce company. That was the first big pause and shift. Later, as an adviser to the C-suite on purpose and pace, I took another pause alongside my day job to write my book, Superfast: Lead at Speed.

I’m an acceleration addict—I love watching brands and businesses grow fast and seeing leaders move with pace in the right direction. But many senior leaders get frustrated by how slow big organizations can be. I’ve worked with high-growth startups and big “supertankers,” and I love bringing startup agility into those larger organizations.

The important pause for me was taking time to write while leading a consultancy. Writing slowed my thinking so I could capture what I was learning—and then help others speed up. The world is moving fast and won’t slow down; pausing to think about how to go faster in the right direction matters. Listening to others about their pace and pauses sharpened my own thinking and helped me go further, faster.

Leadership needs to be thoughtful and responsive—able to move quickly in crises and opportunities, but also responsible. Responsibility often requires a pause.

I’ve also learned that telling ambitious people to “stop” rarely works. The language matters. Reframing “stopping” as a strategic pause helps. For example, when I first moved overseas from the UK to the Middle East, I took about three months to figure out what I wanted to do next. Calling it a “pause to think” made it powerful.

I’ve lived and worked around the world, and giving myself permission to take strategic pauses has been amazing. Writing the book also made me think about micro-pauses:
 

• a pause before a project (a “pre-mortem” to predict problems),
• a pause midway (to check if we’re on track),
• and a pause after (for fast feedback while it’s fresh).

Building in these pauses creates momentum. It makes life feel less like an endless roller coaster and more like a deliberate journey—one that gives you that rare and precious commodity: time to think.

Ellen:
I love that you talked about many kinds of pauses. We pause daily and weekly, and sometimes it’s a big life pause. I want to dig into one of your bigger pauses. You mentioned three:
 

1. moving to the Middle East and taking time to reset,
2. launching your own business, and
3. writing the book.

Can you share more about the two- to three-month pause in the Middle East?
 
Sophie:
When people are navigating their next, that in-between time is a gift. At The Marketing Society, a global community of change leaders, I see many senior people moving between roles or companies. When I left the corporate world and found myself in a new country, I needed to explore what was next.

That “bit in between” is an opportunity to learn, connect, and grow—what the former GE CEO once called the “soak period”—let your brain absorb what’s next and plan how to enter a new role ready to go.

The big lesson for me in a new country was to build my tribe quickly—my network, my wasta (a Middle East term for influence). Many of us leave it too late to build networks because we’re busy with the day job. When you land somewhere new, tapping into existing communities helps. I had to find the audacity to ask: Who should I meet? Who can I speak to? That’s a universal approach—coffee conversations lead to introductions, which lead to opportunities. I eventually joined a great agency in the Middle East, moving from client-side to agency-side—through coffees.

We often advise people to have “100 coffees with 100 people” to figure out what you want and navigate to the next thing. There’s pressure and impatience in that phase, but now I see that pause as a learning window—if your ears are open. Many people end up somewhere because of circumstances. If I hadn’t followed my husband overseas, I wouldn’t have had some of the most interesting and challenging roles of my career.

Treat the pause as a gift and use it to build community. I’m still close to friends and colleagues from that time, and The Marketing Society has a GCC hub (UAE and Saudi). Looking back, I’d be even bolder: don’t be afraid to ask for help, and remember that many people want to give back. Also, try to build friends, not just contacts—shared stories and genuine interest make for stronger, longer-term relationships.

Ellen:
That’s wonderful advice. I didn’t move to the Middle East, but I moved from New York to Texas, which was a big shift. Your “build my tribe” advice is exactly how I found my footing—lots of groups, lots of coffees, and finding the people who understood my work. Over time, my language shifted from very technical to more approachable, and it resonated better—but those early connections were essential.

The other lesson is: don’t wait to refresh your network. People get busy and look up years later without a community to support their next move. Leaders need peers who challenge them and add perspective. Those built-in pauses to listen to others can be energizing.

Beyond enforced pauses, what advice do you have for leaders on when to press pause?

Sophie:
I like using the cadence of time to schedule pauses. Every year I do Year Compass—a look-back/look-forward reflection and goal-setting exercise. This year I set clear goals for the business, my leadership, and my life, and I review them monthly for accountability.

New Year is artificial, but useful. The mid-year works too. Looking back at progress fuels pace—otherwise we only see what’s left to do. Pause at the right times of the year, cherish the pause, and celebrate progress. Driven people often forget to celebrate wins, but celebration keeps hope alive and reinforces a growth mindset.

The power of the pause is that it clarifies direction. It helps you decide not just how fast to go, but where to go—for yourself and your team. Build those pauses in, and you slow down to speed up.

Ellen:
So you’re advocating scheduled pauses—not waiting until you’re burned out. Build them in so you never reach that point. That’s great advice. And back to networks: the best time to plant a tree was years ago; the best time to build a network was five years ago. If you build in pauses to meet people and gain input, you won’t need to wait for an enforced pause to start.

Ellen:
Sophie, this has been great. Thank you for your time and wisdom.

Sophie:
Thank you for having me on. I’m really enjoying the show and look forward to catching up again soon.

Ellen (closing):
Thank you for listening to this episode of Time to Press Pause. To learn more about Sophie, visit marketingsociety.com. To learn more about me, visit thesalientstrategist.com—you can join my newsletter there to stay informed about my upcoming book. Please listen again wherever you get your podcasts.