MORE ABOUT ME
I first wrote to my MP when I was 12, about the lack of plastic recycling locally. Thus began a lifetime of environmental advocacy and campaigning for the causes that matter to me.
Here are three contrasting chapters of my story…
External success (the Spin)
I’ve worked for global brands, helping to deliver the award-winning Share a Coke campaign in Australia and New Zealand. I’ve worked at the highest levels of Government, advising the UK Secretary of State for Business and Deputy Prime Minister. I founded a successful communications consultancy and a first of its kind non-profit, raising money for minoritised women activists and political candidates.
I’ve fought for and secured policy change. In Government, I was part of the team that delivered Shared Parental Leave - giving couples the right to choose when and how to share childcare and returning to work. A small change that could revolutionise gender roles, the labour market and individual lives.
Realising a political opportunity, we also forced our coalition partners to agree to Gender Pay Gap Reporting rules - requiring companies to publish a metric that would make them uncomfortable about the lack of progression of women in their organisations, forcing them to consider why that is the case.
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Internal challenge (the Pain)
I’ve always been a nerd, harnessing curiosity and love of learning to do better - to be better. That passion combined with a strong sense of fairness has seen me take on many social justice causes, in particular sustainability, gender and racial equality. I care deeply about standing up for my values and making change.
In the year I turned 40, my non-profit was featured in Vogue and my consultancy won PRCA Public Affairs Agency of the Year. We were also in the middle of a pandemic lockdown, and I was trying to nurture a team of young people. I was burned out and not my best self, despite the external successes.
After a 3am panic attack and a revelatory conversation with a friend I realised, I was allowed to step back. In fact, it was overdue. The energy I was bringing was resentful, critical and beginning to harm rather than help the causes I cared about. I had to re-prioritise the projects and people that mattered most, starting with myself. Despite years of management and coaching training, I failed to heed those lessons in practice. I’m still unlearning some of my bad habits today.
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Shared growth (the Impact)
I’ve lived, worked and campaigned in Australia, the UK and the USA. I’ve always jumped at roles that challenge or teach me something new, so my career moved globally and laterally, as much as upwards. People often describe me as ‘brave’ something I didn’t realise was one of my strengths until much later in life.
My love of psychology, led me to the science of happiness, which I sought to bake into my business model and day to day life. From business and equalities policy in government, to supporting clients advocating inclusive economics, public health, workplace flexibility and diversity, I became obsessed with how to put principle into practice.
I believe sharing stories about what that really looks like, in the nitty gritty, will help more people improve their impact on communities, workplace and our natural environment. Armed with professional and political experience, a degree in Natural Science, training in coaching, Myers Briggs analysis and B corporation principles, I’m on a mission to help others seeking to make positive change.
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