Heather Baker from PR Agency Founder to £14M CEO to AI & Lead Gen Strategist: Humans in the Loop✨The Career Pivot Playbooks Series
From agency exits to AI education: what she learned about growth, leads, and building in uncertain times.
This Career Pivot Playbook features Heather Baker, a former PR agency founder and CEO who ran a £14M business before stepping into the world of AI and modern B2B growth.
Her career was built in the engine room of marketing and lead generation, first through PR, then through scaling businesses where the real constraint was never awareness, but consistent, high-quality leads.
She didn’t leave success behind. She followed where the pressure points were shifting.
After encountering AI in 2023, she began rethinking not just how businesses grow, but how leaders think about growth itself. That shift ultimately led to two connected platforms: The Humans in the Loop, focused on AI fluency for leaders, and The AI Edit, where she helps B2B companies build more reliable customer acquisition systems.
Inside this Playbook, she unpacks what most leaders are still getting wrong about AI, why lead generation remains the hidden bottleneck in most B2B businesses, and how her thinking evolved from execution to systems-level strategy.
She is also candid about the uncertainty of leaving a CEO role, the reality of building in public, and why even experienced operators underestimate how hard it is to build attention and traction outside traditional structures.
If you are trying to understand how AI is reshaping growth, and what it really takes to build demand in modern B2B markets, this one is for you.
✨About Career Pivot Playbooks
A public archive of modern career blueprints…
Most careers no longer follow a straight line.
People pivot gradually.
They extend their work beyond institutions.
They combine roles, platforms, and income streams.
Career Pivot Playbooks is a weekly series curated by Katharine Gallagher documenting how professionals build resilient, future-ready careers by turning existing skills into income, often combining Substack with consulting, teaching, research, creative work, or business ownership.
The focus isn’t outcomes.
It’s about how careers are shaped in practice.
About Heather
Heather Baker is a PR agency founder turned £14M CEO who spent two decades building, scaling, and selling B2B businesses before shifting into AI and lead generation strategy.
She began her career in PR, launched her agency in 2008 during the recession, and quickly realised the real currency wasn’t press coverage — it was pipeline. That insight pushed her deep into B2B lead generation, a skill that later underpinned her scale-up success - she sold her own business and became CEO of the acquiring company, growing it to £14M revenue and 100+ staff.
In 2024, more than a year after encountering ChatGPT, she pivoted again, this time into AI education and applied strategy, launching The Humans in the Loop and The AI Edit in 2025 to help leaders make sense of AI and build consistent customer acquisition systems in uncertain markets.
Today, she works with B2B leaders to design practical lead generation engines and AI-informed growth strategies that turn visibility into revenue.
You can follow her work here →
Heather reflects:
“Can you share a bit about your professional background and the path that led you to where you are today?”
I came to the UK from South Africa and launched my own business (an agency) in 2008. We had some success at the start, despite the recession. But I quickly (and painfully) learned that our clients didn’t want PR nearly as much as they wanted leads. So I made it a priority to become an expert in lead gen. That paid off: I learned to fill our own pipeline, and our clients’.
I sold that business in 2021, became CEO of the company that bought it, and grew that one to £14m revenue and 100+ staff. Then in 2023 I tried ChatGPT and it worried me. My view: nobody knows what’s coming, so the best strategy is to educate yourself on AI.
I decided to leave that role in 2024 because I wanted to start something on my own again. People kept asking me the same questions about AI (and they were often the wrong questions), so I started The Humans in the Loop, to help leaders think clearly about AI.
Then came The AI Edit, which is now my main business, helping B2B businesses find more customers.
“What sign, moment, or slow realization told you it was time to diversify, and what did you have to push through to actually act on it?”
For me it wasn’t really about diversifying. I was CEO of a mid-size business. It was rewarding, challenging, and a useful experience. But I decided it was time to work for myself again.
“Which skills or experiences from your previous career unexpectedly became an advantage in what you do now?”
Knowing how to generate B2B leads is one of the most valuable skills I ever acquired. It’s still incredibly relevant. In the twenty-plus years I’ve been doing it, the game has changed, then changed again, then changed again. But having that foundational knowledge and experience means I can adapt as I need to.
I’m also grateful to have started my career in PR. Everything I learned there still has relevance today, even though I don’t do much PR anymore. Writing, pitching, positioning, refining an argument, communicating, using social media, reading the news. Those have all stood me in good stead my entire career.
“How did you decide where to build visibility or credibility (Substack or elsewhere), and what role does that platform play in your overall career or income mix?”
I chose Substack because I came across it during the pandemic, and what appealed to me was that, unlike many other social platforms, Substack wasn’t censoring its creators.
Direct income from Substack has been tiny, mainly because I turned off paid subscriptions. But Substack drives a lot of sales of my AI Fluency course, my lead generation services, training sessions and community. So it adds a lot of value.
“Who is your work really for, and what problem do you solve so well that people are willing to pay for it?”
My work is for leaders and owners of B2B businesses, and I help them solve the biggest challenge most of them face: how to generate leads. Through The AI Edit, I help them build a sustainable lead gen engine, so they don’t lie awake at night wondering where the next lead is coming from.
The Humans in the Loop is more of a passion project. There, I help leaders of all kinds of businesses think clearly about AI. My focus is less on which buttons to press (although there is some of that), and more about understanding what AI is and how it works, so they can spot the opportunities and the risks themselves.
I’m not an AI evangelist at all. I’m realistic, and I try to ask the questions that need to be asked - the ones that get glossed over by anyone with a buck to make from selling you an AI tool.
“What turned out to be harder than you expected when you started… and what was easier than you imagined?”
Nothing was easy! I’m blown away by people who are successful at this creator stuff. I’m an experienced writer, an experienced marketer, an experienced business builder and I know my subjects well. So I thought it would be easier for someone like me. It wasn’t. That was a shock.
But maybe I’m reassured by it. If it’s this hard, most people won’t be able to do it. And AI definitely won’t be able to do it!
“How have you found the journey? What advice/strategies and tips would you give to others wanting to grow their audiences?”
Substack is confusing, and it’s worth investing time in understanding how it works. What’s the difference between a follower and a subscriber? Why can some subscribers like your posts while others can’t press the like button even when they really want to? What’s the difference between a note and a post?
Engage with other creators. They’re mostly a good bunch. And keep at it. There’ll be days when you really don’t want to post, and weeks when you’re full of ideas. Don’t give up. My belief is that consistency is the thing most correlated with success, as long as you’re constantly learning from the data.
“What nearly made you quit, and what actually kept you going?”
Do you mean today? Because most days are exciting, rewarding and inspiring, while simultaneously being terrifying and frustrating. I love what I do. I also cry a lot.
There have been many instances where I’ve almost quit. Like when I spent nine hours preparing to deliver a live session and only two people showed up!! Or when people have made disparaging comments about me trying to “make it as an influencer”. Or when I invested in yet another thing, only to later conclude that it was a giant waste of money.
What keeps me going is that I genuinely believe in what I’m doing. I love helping businesses generate leads. I love it when the penny drops and someone really understands something about AI. I love getting the feedback that I’ve helped someone.
I love the freedom of it. I love that I get to be creative. It’s a constant process of iteration and improvement. And I’m already making a living out of it, which is amazing - and I haven’t even scratched the surface of what’s possible.
“What advice would you give to someone considering a similar pivot or looking to monetize their skills in a more flexible way?”
For a lot of people (I appreciate not ALL people) it really is possible to be happy in your work. And when you’re happy in your work, your life is better.
You probably know something better than most people, and you might even be able to package that in a way people will pay you for. That’s worth investigating. And if you don’t know something better than most people (like me with AI in 2023) you can spend a lot of time learning it, and within a few months you will.
“What other platforms, audiences, or income streams are part of your portfolio career… and how do they work together?”
I’m building an ecosystem around my two brands. The AI Edit is my B2B lead gen brand. The Humans in the Loop is my AI fluency brand.
I have two YouTube channels, one for each brand, two LinkedIn pages plus my personal profile, a website for The AI Edit, and my Substack for The Humans in the Loop.
Most people engage with me across multiple platforms. They enter the ecosystem and end up engaging more. They might book me as their lead generation consultant, join my B2B Lead Accelerator, or join my AI Growth Community to learn how to generate leads themselves. They might sign up for my monthly Insider’s AI Briefing, where I cover the top stories from the last 30 days in 30 minutes, live. They might book one of my mini courses, or join my CPD-certified AI Fluency for Leaders course.
There are many ways to work with me and my two brands, and the possibilities keep expanding.
“Looking back, what’s one decision that changed everything… and what’s next for you?”
The decision to leave my job was the big one. I took a little time off and had a bunch of false starts before I landed on The Humans in the Loop and The AI Edit. But I'd never have got to any of this if I'd been trying to do it as a side hustle.
Links & Resources
Connect with Heather…
The AI Edit - B2B lead generation service
YouTube - The AI Edit: Heather Baker
LinkedIn - Heather Baker
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I’m Katharine — a future-focused career strategist helping professionals build income options and stay relevant as work evolves.
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