When this is useful

What this helps people do

How we begin

Everything starts with a situation that needs a wider perspective. This might be a programme you are designing, a decision you are working through, a project that feels stuck, or a challenge where the next step is not yet clear.Together we explore what is happening, what perspectives are missing, and what needs attention before moving forward.

• How I work

"When you can't see the angles no more, you in trouble, baby."
— Carlito Brigante in Carlito's Way (1993)

I have always been interested in how different people can look at the same situation and see completely different things.

These differences are not problems to overcome, they are the starting point for better understanding.

Over the past fifteen years, I have worked across sectors and disciplines - from global institutions to grassroots communities, and across public, private and social innovation contexts - exploring how different experiences, knowledge and assumptions shape the way people understand challenges.Across work with the World Health Organization, Design Council, universities, local authorities, mission-driven businesses and community initiatives, I have helped people connect research, practice and different ways of seeing to develop more informed approaches.Before this, I spent over a decade founding and leading an innovation and design practice, creating products, spaces and public installations that introduced new ways of thinking, living and working.Today, I bring together design, sustainability, research and education to help people work with complexity - particularly when different disciplines, organisations or communities need to understand each other.Most people remember Carlito's Way as a 90s crime drama. I remember it as a study in navigating complexity: a character constantly reading the landscape, noticing relationships, risks and possibilities before deciding how to move forward.That is the space I aim to hold: helping people understand more of the landscape before stepping into their next encounter.

"Rigorously creative, in that she combines systems thinking and critical thinking with the spontaneity needed for new ideas. Not many people can do this."
— Darren Evans, Strategic Designer and Design Council Expert

Relevant qualifications

My background sits at the intersection of science and the arts. I hold an MSc (Distinction) in Sustainable Development in Practice from the University of the West of England and a BA (Hons) in Fashion Promotion & Illustration from the Surrey Institute of Art and Design (now University for the Creative Arts).I am also a Cambridge CELTA-qualified ESOL teacher, experienced in communicating complex ideas clearly and accessibly to people working in English as an additional language.

Selected publications

Preparing for the next encounter.

Complex challenges rarely sit within one discipline, organisation or perspective. They require people to understand different viewpoints, notice what may be missing and recognise how the same situation can look different depending on where you stand.

Sometimes this means bringing more people into the room. Sometimes it means stepping outside it. Either way, there will come a moment when progress depends on engaging with people whose experiences, priorities or ways of understanding are different from your own.This can show up as:

My work and observations range from global institutions to SMEs, community initiatives and everything in between. Drawing on systems thinking, design research, strategic thinking and cross-sector practice, I help people understand the landscape before acting.The common thread is always the same: looking at a situation from one position, then from another to see what may have been missed.This is often useful when:

The aim is not simply to find an answer quickly. It is to develop a fuller understanding of the situation, so people can build stronger relationships, make better decisions and move forward with greater awareness.

"She approaches complex challenges with care and intellectual rigor, always seeking to understand the deeper dynamics at play."
— Dr Hebe Gouda, World Health Organization

This shows up in two main ways:

If you're not sure which fits, email me and I'll help you work out where to start.

Learning experiences

Preparing people for real-world complexity

Many programmes teach knowledge, methods or frameworks. The challenge comes when people need to apply them in situations where there is no textbook answer.

I work with programme leaders and education teams to design learning experiences that help people understand context, encounter different perspectives and practise applying knowledge in real situations.This is useful when learners need to:

I help bring real-world perspectives into learning through:

Engagements have ranged from individual workshops to multi-month programme design and co-facilitation, across environmental, social, economic and professional learning contexts.

Examples

Design Council / Integrating systems thinking into design thinking.
A six-month design thinking programme for complex place-based challenges needed to help participants move beyond generating ideas in-house and return to discovery, research and understanding the experiences of the stakeholders affected. I enhanced the programme with systems thinking, sustainability, behavioural insight and enterprise innovation, encouraging participants to course-correct, widen the frame of the challenge and consider longer-term impacts before developing solutions.Design Council / Essex County Council - Engaging young people in Essex's climate future.
Essex County Council wanted to better understand what would inspire young people to contribute more meaningfully to local climate action. I helped the council and Climate Ambassador Network explore participatory research approaches, leading to a workshop where fifteen- to eighteen-year-olds contributed directly to the council's climate strategy and the development of tools teachers could use to gather youth insights across the region.University of Bath / Connecting research, policy and community perspectives.
A public sector collaboration sought to engage cross-city stakeholders around a Doughnut Economics-inspired economic development plan. I designed and facilitated a two-year community learning programme that helped participants explore Doughnut Economics, build shared understanding and reconcile different perspectives, while identifying how universities, local government and civil society could engage more effectively.The Interior Design School / Translating sustainability into design education.
The Interior Design School recognised that future students wanted more than sustainability awareness - they needed different ways of thinking about design, materials, consumption and responsibility. I researched and presented approaches for integrating circular and regenerative design principles into the curriculum, helping leadership consider new course formats, teaching approaches and future development.

"It was fantastic to be shown that we can start the conversation and provide leadership through our courses."
— Amanda Culpin, Interior Designer & Course Leader

This is one of two ways I work:

If you’re developing a learning programme that could benefit from this kind of input, email me and we’ll arrange a conversation.

Thinking partnerships

Understanding the situation before deciding what to do

Sometimes the challenge is not a lack of ideas; it's that the situation has not yet been understood fully.

I work with individuals and teams who need space to explore a complex challenge, question assumptions and identify what may be missing before moving forward.This might be when:

Together we explore:

This can take the form of:

Thinking session
A focused conversation around a decision, challenge or upcoming encounter.Thinking partner
Ongoing space to explore complex questions with someone outside your immediate context.Project support
Working alongside a team to help understand complexity and prepare for important decisions on a live project.

Engagements have ranged from individual thinking sessions to longer-term thinking partnerships and project support with individuals and teams across public, private and third-sector organisations.

Examples

World Health Organization / Anticipating future industry behaviour.
WHO wanted to strengthen how policymakers and practitioners could apply the report in practice. Working alongside the editorial lead for the 10th WHO Report on the Global Tobacco Epidemic, I identified opportunities to increase its practical value, including developing a visual timeline tracing decades of tobacco industry interference in support of WHO FCTC Article 5.3.London Borough of Hounslow / Testing assumptions before acting.
A council team had developed a proposed climate solution but needed to understand whether it reflected local realities before investing further. By introducing an interdisciplinary research approach, I helped the team test its assumptions, explore local perspectives and reshape its approach before committing time and resources.World Health Organization / Seeing health communication differently.
WHO wanted to understand whether its existing health warnings reflected the realities and motivations of the people they were intended to reach. Through focused research, I identified communication themes that were missing from existing warnings, highlighting opportunities for stronger cultural and behavioural relevance in support of WHO FCTC Articles 11 and 12.Lumsden Design / Preparing for changing client expectations.
An international interior design practice recognised that client expectations around sustainability were changing but was unsure how this would affect their practice. Through one-to-one thinking sessions with leadership, we explored what those changes meant for the practice. This led to team learning that reframed sustainability from a perceived constraint into a source of creative and commercial opportunity.

"I wish we'd done it sooner. It blew away some myths and helped me realise there is so much more to sustainability than the use or non-use of materials. I highly recommend!"
— Simon Clark, Co-Founder, Lumsden Design

This is one of two ways I work:

If you are working through something that needs this kind of space, email me and we’ll arrange a conversation.

Pre-
Collaborative
City

The work we need to do before we bring everyone into the room.

Place-based collaborations often begin by bringing people together, only to find that people arrive with different understandings of the situation they are trying to change.When those differences remain unexplored, conversations can become debates about positions rather than opportunities to build shared understanding.

What if the most important work happens before collaboration begins?

Pre-Collaborative City is for people designing, leading and supporting collaborative responses to complex place-based social and environmental challenges.

It is a growing collection of field guides and learning resources exploring what happens when different perspectives need to come together.

This project brings together fifteen years of observation, research and practice across design, sustainability, innovation, learning and systems change - exploring what helps people build shared understanding.

From developing shared language and definitions to finding better entry points into conversations, the field guides explore what needs to be understood before people can move forward together: the local context, different perspectives and what matters to people.The aim is to create the conditions for people to collaborate in ways that respond to the realities of a particular place.Whether you work in local government, urban development, public health, climate action, design, research or community development, these resources are designed to help you slow down, make sense of complexity and move forward with greater confidence.

Which field guides would be most useful first?

I'm currently speaking with people involved in place-based collaboration to understand their experiences of where collaboration becomes difficult and what support would be most useful beforehand.

If you'd like to share your experiences in a 30 minute knowledge-sharing conversation, I'd be delighted to hear from you. I'll share any relevant tools and insights that may be useful to your own work in turn.Email me or use the form below, and I'll get back to you shortly.