my experience

Film & television production taught me how to manage complexity. Humanitarian work taught me what complexity means when the consequences are life and death. Building my own organisation taught me how we create our own complexity – or not – and the value of thought-partnership.

Working with so many varieties of teams – across different issues, cultures and motivations – afforded me the ability to recognise the patterns and relational decisions that shape how people and visions cohere or misalign.

I’ve built teams, lead teams, restructured teams, reduced teams, made tough decisions without full visibility and where consequences put visions, livelihoods and lives at stake. It is not for the faint of heart – I know the value of good sounding boards and experienced support in these crucial moments.

I have acute perception and an ability to read people, situations and misalignment. Years of working in high-stakes environments have sharpened my discernment and ability to take or guide decisions when there is uncertainty, multiple variables and competing priorities.

I learnt that it’s beyond executing a vision – it’s how you go about it. I learnt that big success is often harder to manage than simply doing well or underperforming. I learnt that everything is relational.

Direct experience has been my greatest teacher and is the foundation I offer my insights from.

My career includes:

• co-founding and building a successful international social justice organisation providing risk and investigative expertise, then comfortably transitioning leadership over to the second-tier after nearly 7 years at the helm

• 4.5 years of humanitarian fieldwork, mostly for Medecins Sans Frontieres inside complex conflict zones such as the Middle East

• 10 years in film & television production, notably as Head of Production for Downton Abbey and co-producing Bafta-winning The Lost Honour of Christopher Jefferies