Julie Ryder: Redefining Success Through Deaf Awareness

Episode Summary

Julie Ryder is a UK-based inclusion consultant and founder of an award-winning training business that helps organisations better support deaf employees and customers. In this episode, Julie shares her deeply personal journey of becoming profoundly deaf in her twenties, losing the career she had worked so hard for, and building a new path with purpose. From lip-reading lessons to launching a national consultancy, Julie’s story is one of resilience, reinvention, and using lived experience to create change.

Key Takeaways:

• What it feels like to acquire hearing loss mid-career
• How to rebuild identity and confidence after becoming profoundly deaf
• Why inclusion and accessibility are essential workplace tools
• How Julie launched a national consultancy with just one flyer and a kitchen shelf
• The three ingredients that help anyone move forward after a major life shift

Meet Julie Ryder

Julie Ryder is the founder of a UK-based workplace training consultancy that specialises in deaf awareness and inclusive communication. After becoming profoundly deaf as a young adult, she transitioned out of her career in banking and built one of the UK’s most respected deaf awareness training businesses. Julie has trained thousands of professionals across sectors, with clients including the BBC, Royal Mail, and the Houses of Parliament.

Meet Julie

How She Pivoted
Julie Ryder began her career in banking with a clear plan for advancement. But when she became profoundly deaf in her twenties, her world shifted completely. Over several years, her hearing declined so dramatically that even basic communication at work became a challenge. She was moved to lower-level roles, sent farther from home, and eventually left the field altogether, grieving the career and identity she had worked so hard to build.

“What was left then was the shell of me, just starting out with a new identity as a newly-deafened person,” shared Julie Ryder on episode 29 of the Rhonda Coleman Wandel podcast.

Her turning point came when she volunteered to deliver a deaf awareness training session during a rehabilitation program. That small act sparked something bigger. With a single flyer and a borrowed computer on a kitchen shelf, Julie began offering training in her community. Two decades later, her consultancy is one of the most respected in the UK.

Insights for Ambitious Women

Julie’s journey is a powerful reminder that we are allowed to begin again—and that adapting to a major life change does not mean giving up ambition. She speaks with honesty about grief, mental health, and the long road to confidence. Her work shows how lived experience can be a source of credibility and impact.

“If you’ve got personal commitment, support, and the opportunity, you can thrive,” encouraged Julie Ryder on the RCW podcast

Julie also reflects on how her deafness influenced her parenting, making her more intentional, communicative, and open with her children. Her message is clear: when life shifts direction, you’re allowed to shift with it and you can still build something extraordinary.

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