After a decade in campaigning, I felt exhausted and overwhelmed. It began to seem nonsensical to me that we could meet the scale of the crises facing our planet by pursuing short-term, incremental, issue-specific changes. I began exploring other strategies for creating impact at the depth, scale and durability required. Today I work in the field of narrative and culture change, helping to create the societal conditions necessary for systemic transformation.

I joined the Common Cause Foundation in 2020. We work with a broad church of organisations, helping them to recognise and shift what we call their ‘cultural values footprint’. In our flat structure, I lead the design and delivery of our learning programmes (including Values 101), collaborating with partners and developing organisational strategy.

Alongside my work at CCF, I am a freelance narrative and cultural strategist, working with organisations to understand, apply and evaluate narrative and cultural change practices. This work has seen me collaborate with the likes of Save the Children, New Media Advocacy Project, Joseph Rowntree Foundation, Anti-Slavery International, hope-based communications, Women’s Budget Group, Penguin Random House and others.

A keen researcher and writer, I’ve authored a number of reports, including Transforming Narrative Waters (2021) which explores opportunities for narrative and culture change work in the UK. This has now been translated into 3 languages and has been widely shared across the world as a comprehensive introduction to the practice of narrative change. Other reports of mine can be found on my LinkedIn.

I've been invited to speak about my work and the importance of understanding values, narratives and culture change at events such as the Confluence Conference, Inter-Narratives, the AKO Storytelling Institute, Purpose Disruptors, AdFree Cities, Hot and Cool Institute, KI Culture and On Purpose. You can hear me in action on the Accidental Gods podcast or the Circular Economy podcast.

I’m the founder of Culture Soup, which began life as a newsletter and developed into a community of narrative practitioners and the narrative-curious based across the world. I’ve also recently founded Culture Club (website pending), a space for people to gather and discuss how our cultures are preventing us from crafting the futures we long for.

Outside of work you’ll find me with my head in a book (book recommendations always welcome!) or exploring my corner of South East London.