Episode 9. Cashing Out: The Real Path to Entrepreneurial Success

THIS EPISODE WILL BE LAUNCHING IN MARCH 2026

In this episode of Balancing Act – Mastering Work, Wealth and Wellbeing, Sarah Brennand is joined by Alexis Sikorsky, entrepreneur, advisor, and author, for an honest conversation about what entrepreneurial success really looks like over the long term.

Alexis shares his journey from starting businesses as a teenager to building New Access into a global banking software company and navigating a nine-figure exit. Along the way, he reflects on the realities behind growth: pressure, responsibility, decision fatigue, and the personal cost of leading through uncertainty.

The conversation explores not only the strategic decisions that shaped Alexis’s success, but also the moments of failure, including financial collapse, redundancy decisions, and the identity shift that followed his exit. He speaks openly about the emotional impact of these experiences and why founders are often well-prepared for scale, but not for what comes after.

Now working with founders and leadership teams, Alexis shares the principles behind his APEX method and why emotional intelligence, self-awareness, and personal readiness are critical assets in building companies that last. This episode offers grounded insight for entrepreneurs who want to scale with intention, prepare for exit properly, and define success in a way that holds up beyond the finish line.

Key Topics Covered

• Starting young: early entrepreneurial experiences and lessons learned
• Building and scaling New Access over two decades
• Strategic pivots and responding to market reality
• Leading through pressure, uncertainty, and financial crisis
• The emotional and human cost of high-performance leadership
• Making difficult decisions, including redundancy and restructuring
• Preparing for exit: business readiness versus personal readiness
• The identity gap after selling a company
• Reframing failure as feedback rather than defeat
• Emotional intelligence as a strategic leadership capability
• The APEX method: structuring companies for scale, resilience, and exit
• Redefining success after a major liquidity event
• Creating sustainable success across work, wealth, and wellbeing

Alexis Sikorsky is an entrepreneur, business advisor and author known for building, scaling, and successfully exiting New Access SA, a Geneva-based banking software company he founded in 2000. Over two decades he grew the business into a major player in its sector before engineering its acquisition by a private equity firm for a nine-figure sum.