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.”