How burnout brought a CEO to breaking point, what the signs are and how to fix it
Headhunting firm founder Oliver Rolfe became compulsively addicted to his work and felt ‘miserable, emotionally numb’ – but couldn’t stop
In summer 2023, Oliver Rolfe was at breaking point. On the face of it, he had it all. In his early forties, he was a happily married father of two and the founder of a successful global headhunting business. He did not realise, though, that he was on the brink of burnout.
“In hindsight, I can see how it all unravelled,” he says from his home in London. “I had always loved work, but it was a balance with sport and socialising.”
After hurting his back 10 years ago, he could not play football – “something I had always used as an outlet” – so he threw himself into his work at Spartan International, which is based in London with offices in Hong Kong and New York.
“It became where I found my dopamine hits instead of sport,” he says. “My identity became tied to my work success.”
He began cramming endless meetings into his days and was on his phone constantly during family holidays.
“I was miserable, I felt depleted, emotionally numb, empty and just like I didn’t know what I liked any more, or even who I was,” he says.