In this episode of Progress in Practice, Charlie Reading is joined by Amanda Regan, founder of Ignite Your Career- a coaching practice helping high-performing mid-career professionals reposition their careers deliberately so they can step into the person they've already become.

Amanda's path to coaching is extraordinary. Streamed wrongly at secondary school, told she wasn't A-level material, and rejected by every advanced school she applied to, she went on to spend 20 years at the European Space Agency, including a pivotal moment standing in Kennedy Space Centre, where the Challenger disaster had first ignited her ambition as a 12-year-old. Her coaching framework, built on the principles of space mission design, is as original as her story.

This is a fascinating, inspiring, and deeply practical conversation about visibility, positioning, resilience, and what it really takes to design the career, and life, you want.

Key Talking Points

• Who Amanda serves: high-performing mid-career professionals, mainly women, who are successful on paper but quietly feeling stuck or flat
• Why competence can trap you and how growing beyond your role creates a dangerous mismatch
• The Challenger disaster at age 12: how a single moment put Amanda on a trajectory towards the European Space Agency
• How rejection and being streamed wrongly at school taught Amanda to present herself as the solution to a problem
• Why Amanda became known as the "CV whisperer" at university and how that skill never left her
• The moment at Kennedy Space Centre in 2012: sending her mum a photo to say "people like us do get jobs like this"
• What Amanda would tell her younger self: focus on positioning and visibility, not just competence
• Why being indispensable in a role can be a career trap, not a career asset
• The advice Amanda would pass on: clarity doesn't start with knowing what you want — it starts with the courage to admit what you're no longer willing to tolerate
• Just because you can doesn't mean you should, and why delegation is liberation
• Amanda's biggest challenge: scaling her high-touch coaching sustainably and systematically
• The Ignite Your Career framework: six engines, all aligned, inspired by space mission design
• Why no mission reaches orbit by accident and what that means for your career
• Book recommendation: Space Mission Design- Amanda's unconventional but brilliant coaching bible

About the Guest Amanda Regan is the founder of Ignite Your Career, a coaching practice helping high-performing mid-career professionals deliberately reposition themselves for what's next. A rocket scientist by training, Amanda spent 20 years at the European Space Agency and the European Commission, leading a multi-million euro space programme before transitioning full-time into coaching. Her Ignite Your Career framework, built on the principles of space mission design, draws on two decades of navigating international, high-stakes environments to help professionals align their skills, visibility, and positioning for the career they're ready for.

Find Out More

To learn more about Amanda and Ignite Your Career visit: makethejobyours.com

To connect with Amanda visit: linkedin.com/in/amanda-regan-link

Resources & Links Mentioned

• Space Mission Design - Amanda's coaching framework bible
• Ignite Your Career framework: six aligned engines for career progression
• Charlie's Magnification Mastery session — one to many coaching: https://youtu.be/Orthj0JyKhQ
• Quote: "If someone tells me no, it doesn't mean I can't do it. It simply means I can't do it with them." Karen Quinodus Miller

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