Caroline Casey

Social Entrepreneur / Adventurer / Activist

Herstory sat down and spoke with Caroline Casey, founder of The Valuable 500, a global business collective made up of 500 CEOs and their companies, innovating together for disability inclusion. It’s utterly impossible to put Caroline in one box, and that’s not where she wants to be either, so we’ll let her tell you her own story…

I’m a social entrepreneur, I’m an adventurer. I’m a businesswoman, I’m a campaigner, I’m an activist. I rode across India on an elephant when I left Accenture because I was hiding the biggest lie of my life. I rode across Colombia on a horse to find a CEO who would help me launch what I’m doing today, which is the Valuable 500. I have had some incredible highs and some incredible lows. I have been broken and happy, up and down, and inside out. I did not come from a Pollyanna Walton background and actually, that’s given me the greatest spine of all. I did a Ted Talk in 2010 and everyone thinks that’s where my story stopped, and it’s not! I think if I were to say to anyone today, I have a fierce big heart, I’m a troublemaker, I wear sparkly big wings on my back and I don’t take no for an answer. I love to dance! I love my friends and my family. I push myself sometimes too hard but I’m learning to be better. But if there was one sentence, I could leave with anyone it would be that you’re defined by nothing! You want to write your own story? You want to live your own life? You’re defined by none of it. So, this is Caroline Casey today, I’m a little bit heartbroken because I lost a very dear friend recently. But this is me.

I hadn’t a clue what I wanted to be. I had dreams at 17 that I wanted to live like Mowgli from the Jungle Book, or a cowgirl, I wanted to race cars and motorbikes. I wanted to be free. But there were no things like doctor or lawyer that I wanted to be. I didn’t know what I wanted to be, I felt different and lost. But look now! If I could, I’d tell my younger self that what matters at 17 is that you live your truth. Live your instinct and live your soul. What’s the roar from your soul? I’m 49 now and I really quite like the woman that I’ve evolved into.

My advice to my 17-year-old self? Well, I was born with this condition called ocular albinism which means that I’m registered blind, and I have about two feet vision. But my parents decided to bring me up as a sighted child. They didn’t tell me I had an eye condition because my father believed labels are limiting. They’re for packages and jam jars, not human beings. He didn’t want any of his children to have a small life. Both my parents were black sheep, we didn’t fit in. And my advice would be what their advice was, that you’re not a label. You are not defined by one thing. If I were to hold myself at 17, I’d say go out and try it all. Try not listen to the voices that tell you you should fit in. I want to belong, but I want to belong as me, not some version that others say is me. My life hasn’t been straight forward. On the outside, it looks one way, but it hasn’t been that – there’s a lot more depth and life under what one can see. So, I’d say keep putting one foot in front of the other. It’s okay to be big and take up space, just make sure you’re doing it your way as honestly as you can.

I don’t know where I’m going to be in the future. I always thought if I could make the world a better place, if I could raise enough money here, I’d be good enough … but something really strange happened a year ago. I was waiting for a taxi to go to the airport, and I was sitting outside. What I was going off to do was really big, but I remember sitting there and getting this rush all over me as if someone had knocked me down with this sense of feeling. This voice in my head said, ‘it’s not who you are, it’s just what you do.’ And from that moment I realised that the work I do isn’t who Caroline is. Who Caroline is is this woman who’s just trying to do her very best. But my worth and my value and my shadow don’t come from the work I do, it comes from me. So, I don’t know who I’m gonna be as I evolve, but I’m certainly getting better at doing what I want, rather than what I think everyone else wants me to do.

If I could give one piece of advice, I’d say do your shit. We all come from places of pain and sadness. Some of us more than others but we all go through life and pick up as many wounds and scars as much as we pick up love, so do your shit. Whether you do it through therapy, dance, sport or whatever – just work it out. When you accept yourself you accept others around you better. You make better decisions. There’s no hierarchy to pain or trauma. We’re all here just doing the best we can, and our lives are relative to ourselves. The Valuable 500 came from the death of my father. When he died he just disappeared. The pain and the anger I felt in my heart created the Valuable 500. I own that. And it wasn’t achieved overnight. It took grit.

The transition from corporate to activist was big. When I discovered my eye condition at 17 years old, I just did not want that label. I wanted to race a motorbike across the desert listening to Led Zeppelin’s A Whole Lotta Love. And there was no way I was gonna do that if I couldn’t see the handlebars in front of me. So, I hid my condition for 11 years and that was just … so many accidents and adventures, but magic too. I ended up as a management consultant with Accenture. Excise the pub but I went in there blind. I wasn’t sure if I really wanted it. I was conforming on the outside but felt slightly crazy on the inside. I was with them two and a half years and they didn’t know about my eye condition. But because I wasn’t getting the help I needed with it, I actually ended up damaging my sight more. So, I told everyone at the end of 1999 and my life changed. It was the first time I’d asked for help. Accenture sent me to an eye specialist and the doctor told me the truth – as furious as it made me at the time. I fell apart. I’d been falling apart for a while, but I just didn’t realise it. I collapsed on a beach and cried and then I thought about my dream of wanting to be Mowgli in the Jungle Book. 9 months later I had temporarily left my job and found myself in Southern Indian with my forehead against the forehead of an elephant. After a few months I trekked across India and became an elephant handler. I was ready to start the journey of accepting I couldn’t see but I wasn’t ready for it to take me over. I wanted it to be on my terms. Through this elephant journey I came to understand the global crisis facing the disability community, of which I am one. When I came home from my elephant, I’d raised a lot of money, and Accenture wanted me back, but I said no. I couldn’t go back because I realised in not owning my own disability I was colluding in a world that was asking people to hide away because they’re different.

I’m used to being on big stages. I don’t see very well obviously so feeling energy is very important to me. During Covid I was asked to give a talk over zoom and the thought of it was terrible – I need to feel the energy of the people in the room! But I did it and oddly enough, because I couldn’t feel energy from the audience, I really had to connect in to myself. And I ended up being quite emotional! I remember thinking, what was that? And it came down to this. There’s power in the pause. I wasn’t running away on the plains and stages and whatever. In that pause there came this knowing in myself that I don’t want to forget. It was so powerful. I then got feedback from this talk and all of it was brilliant feedback bar one line, which stood out to me. It said ‘she is too emotional. It’s unprofessional.’ I threw my head back and laughed. Too emotional? Unprofessional? And I just wanted to shout out that yes! I’m emotional! Yes, I have a big heart! Because business is about people, people have hearts. Where is your heart? Where is the roar from your soul that feeds your creativity? Don’t’ be frightened of the feelings. They’re there, they’re real and they’ll move us. There’s no way we can have the inclusive world I want if we don’t genuinely accept who we are ourselves. Because then we will not turn to the other person and say if I give to you, I take away from myself. The scarcity model is the fear. Own your shadow as much as your light. And that’s hard, but it’s important.

You can change your mind. What I wanted at 22 was different to what I wanted at 24. Different to what I wanted at 30. You can grow and evolve and change your mind. If we want to have a world where we’re all authentic, we need to hold our own. We all have a role to play in creating an inclusive and just world.

My definition of success is… Somebody who I really respect once said success is loving where I am right now. Success is not when you’re sticking your neck out wanting others to think wow aren’t you great. It’s about being comfortable in your own skin and accepting where you are. At the height of my external success where you could’ve looked at me and gone isn’t she great! I wasn’t! I really wasn’t. I can look anyone in the eye and say that the greatest moments in my life have come from pain, tragedy, loss, from hurt. Because somehow in those spaces the better part of who I have evolved into has come through. I have learned so much from honouring those moments, and honouring that struggle that in a way, they have been the fireflies that light up my life. From the other side of shadow is light. We have the greatest moment if we choose to take the pain and turn it into light. For me, it’s not enough to have the heart. It’s the intersection of your head and your heart. Apply your intelligence to your heart.

Thank you to Caroline for chatting to us.