Workforce transformation depends on the power of partnership. Here’s how Challenge Factory is helping leaders build future-ready workforces.

By Lisa Taylor

Every November, Global Careers Month provides an opportunity not only to celebrate the field of career development, but also to reflect on how it is advancing in real-time across economies, institutions, and cultures. This year, Challenge Factory contributed to conversations on three continents, and these experiences reaffirmed a central truth that underpins our work: transforming career and workforce systems requires meaningful, committed partnership.

Throughout the month, I had the privilege of delivering keynote addresses at two landmark international events. In Saudi Arabia, I spoke at their first-ever Career Guidance Conference, a bold national effort to strengthen mobility, employability, and opportunity across a rapidly changing labour market. From there, I travelled to Lisbon to celebrate the opening of Europe’s first Center on Longevity Leadership, a milestone in Europe’s commitment to reframing ageing, work, and contribution across longer lives.

Though the economic, cultural, and political landscapes could not have been more distinct, the underlying questions echoed each other: How do people thrive amid shifting labour markets? How do we design systems that offer agency, dignity, and opportunity, especially when change feels constant?

Career development holds some of the most powerful tools for answering these questions. Whether advancing women’s workforce participation in Saudi Arabia or amplifying the value of older workers across Europe, career development begins with human experience and builds outward to create systemic solutions that allow people—regardless of age, geography, or background—to participate fully in their local economies.

Yet these global opportunities didn’t emerge simply because Challenge Factory brings subject matter expertise. They came because we’ve built a reputation for collaboration, discretion, and system-level partnership.

When Challenge Factory first certified as a B Corp, we noticed something important about how we operate: more than 80% of our revenue came from work done in partnership with clients, institutions, and other specialist firms. Much of our contribution happens behind the scenes—designing methodology, modelling workforce dynamics, shaping strategy, and advising leaders—so that the initiative and its impact remain at the forefront.

A prime example this month has been our work in Saudi Arabia. Delivering on the country’s bold vision for career guidance requires an intricate partnership with the Human Resources Development Fund (HRDF), King Saud University, and international collaborators including SkillLab (Amsterdam) and Intalo (Australia). The work spans borders, time zones, cultures, and disciplines. It is complex, and it works precisely because we approach it as a shared mission, not a solitary or siloed effort.

As Global Careers Month unfolded, we also saw growing engagement with Challenge Factory’s thought leadership. Our social channels gained new followers from around the world, and downloads of our tools, especially the Five Drivers of Workforce Change, increased significantly. Purchases of The Talent Revolution: Longevity and the Future of Work also rose, further reinforcing that organizations are hungry for practical, future-focused frameworks.

What this month made clear is that individual career transitions are enabled by the systems around them—and those systems only shift when partners align with trust and intention.

I’m energized by the partners who work with us, grateful for the confidence they place in Challenge Factory, and inspired by what we can achieve together. If this month has proven anything, it’s that collaboration isn’t just a value. It’s the engine of meaningful change.

Together, we can do hard things. And together, we can build career and workforce systems that enable people and organizations to thrive.