Work with me
Most of my work starts with someone stuck.
A great idea that can't get funded. A team doing brilliant work that nobody senior seems to notice. A transformation that looked sensible on the slide and turned to treacle somewhere in the corridor. If that's you, the problem usually isn't you, and it usually isn't the idea. It's the dark matter: the politics, the power, the fear, the incentives and the stories that quietly decide what's actually possible.
I help senior leaders and their teams design strategy, policy, products, services, and often the organisation itself. And then I help them work the invisible stuff that decides whether any of it happens. Some people call this digital transformation. I call it strategic design.
How I can help
Strategy, policy and organisational design. The core of it. Redesigning organisations around the people they serve, and around the dark matter that shapes them: incentives, governance, culture, decision rights. This is the work I've done inside government and large bureaucracies, at scale, when the stakes were real.
Design and delivery leadership. Building and leading multidisciplinary teams to create inclusive, equitable and accessible products and services, frequently from scratch and at pace, in places not built for either. Product and design leadership, and the change management to make it stick.
Research and behavioural insight. Exploratory and abductive research, ResearchOps, and behavioural design. Understanding people (users, colleagues, the leaders whose backing you need) as the messy, emotional, social creatures they actually are, and designing accordingly.
Coaching and advisory. One-to-one and team coaching for executives and leadership teams, and advisory or non-executive support for boards. Often this is where the dark matter work gets personal: navigating power, being seen, making the unpopular call and holding it.
Facilitation, speaking and capability-building. Design sprints, journey mapping, masterclasses and workshops. Keynotes, panels and conference talks, including Designing in the Dark, on the invisible forces that decide whether your work succeeds, and how to work with them.
How I work
Outcome-focused, evidence-based, and human-centred. Contextual rather than off-the-shelf, because what works in one organisation is exactly what fails in another. Collaborative, because I'm trying to build your capability, not your dependence on me. And honest, which sometimes means telling you the thing in the room that nobody else will.
I work with leaders and teams across the public and private sectors, in this country and others. Some engagements are a day. Some run for months. The best ones usually start with a conversation about what's actually stuck.
Let's talk
Get in touch via LinkedIn if you'd like to discuss:
a piece of strategic design, transformation or research
coaching or mentoring, for you or your team
advisory or non-executive support for your board
public speaking, a workshop, or writing.
Or just to say hello if it's been a while. I'd like to hear how things are with you.
[→ Get in touch via LinkedIn]