I found Victoria to be a gifted and agile co-creator. She has the ability to quickly ascertain the key elements required - whether in a culture change project or while facilitating seminars/workshops or symposia. She also has an empathy radar that never strays into the wishy washy - but ensures the highest level of sensitivity to the situation she’s supporting.

I am a coach, strategic adviser and sounding board, convenor and companion for those who seek to create lasting change.

Whether it's change in yourself, in your teams and networks, in your organisation, or even in your role and influence in the system your organisation forms part of, I can come alongside with my experience as a leader.

Leaving NatWest in 1997 after a career in finance, exchange traded derivatives and operational risk, I set up a radical new consultancy. The founding essay for Sparknow described it as a 'collaborative enterprise designing spaces for knowledge'. I think I'd reverse that today: 'a knowledge enterprise designing spaces for collaboration' seems nearer the mark. Sparknow retired in 2017, but continues to be at the heart of my work today, helped along by the many extraordinary people I've met along the way.

Since 1997, I've taken on challenges at every level in a huge variety of settings: whether it's on mission with the World Health Organisation; co-creating a mural with a shared services group grounded in first hand stories; or strategising with multinational leaders and their organisational development teams to design and deliver a different way of being at work together.

Wherever the work needs to be reimagined, I know what it takes to uncover and embrace a messy reality, find the direction you want to go, translate strategy into collective action, and understand and adapt as things evolve. I'm as committed to ensuring  those affected by the change get a say in how it unfolds as I am to growing effective, mature leaders.

Instead of trying to specify it in full detail, you specify it only somewhat. You then ride on the dynamics of the system in the direction you want to go. [Brian Eno, from his introduction to Stafford Beers 'Think before you think']

After 25 years I've still got a thirst to enquire into the forward edges of knowledge management, narrative, tech-enabled transformation, and collaboration in the workplace, and to make a difference through thinking, practice and conversation.

I'm qualified as an ICF coach and currently studying for a Diploma in the Sociocratic Circle Method with the Swiss Sociacracy centre. More here about my coaching practice.

Playing oboe and cor anglais in amateur music ensembles takes up much of my spare time, and I volunteer in a local authority bereavement befriending service.

You'll find a sporadically updated list of some of the more interesting projects here and a vague intention to link things to case studies and writing over 2020.

I have a number of close working relationships with people and organisations, some of them going back decades:

Anecdote - exploring the forward edges of business storytelling with Shawn Callahan

Blacklight Advisory - leadership & coaching with Ajit Menon and Andy Lyon

Fernanda de Uriarte - visual storytelling with Fernanda

Infinite Futures - foresight and the Jigsaw foresight toolkit with Wendy Schultz

Leading Edge Forum - research associate, including research into reconfiguring the collaborative workspace with Dr Caitlin McDonald

Soziokratie Zentrum Schweiz - working towards the Diploma with Jeannine Brutschin & Suzanne Käser, and in a circle with Monika Megyesi & Athina Maria Tsioka

Spacecraft - working with Chris Heimann on connected leadership - presence, team peformance and collaborative approaches to leadership

Spanner - tech-enabled narrative, knowledge management, peer-learninig and transformation interventions with Will Ross

Photo by Andreea Tufescu Photography