Strategy Lead
What do you do at &us?
As a Strategy Lead, my role is made up of three key activities (all equal in weight) that help deliver brilliant work for &us clients. These are;
- Leading project teams to deliver client work that is thoughtful, rigorous and provocative
- Supporting, guiding and developing more junior members of the team, helping them reach their potential
- Working with the leadership team to drive the thinking at &us, pushing ourselves to be better and to create the best working environment for all &us employees
What do you care about most in your work?
True collaboration and coming up with great ideas:
Collaboration: On a human/me level, I love people and the dynamics of working with others; collaborating, interacting, facilitating, discussing, debating. These are the moments that make me feel the most inspired.
Ideation: Having worked in innovation for the majority of my career, I’m fascinated by the process of coming up with a good idea. There are so many parts to coming up with a good idea, let alone the many ingredients that are then needed to turn an idea into a successful product or service. And it’s a never ending process, even once a product or service is launched, there is always a place for improvement.
What did you do prior to &us?
It’s been purposefully varied. I cut my teeth at Clear, the strategy arm of M&C Saatchi. It was a bootcamp on how to be a consultant, where I learnt the art of storytelling through the lens of ‘brutal simplicity of thought’. After nearly 6 years there, I discovered Design Thinking and service design, creating brand-led customer experiences for the biggest hotel group in the world. Then I moved into the impact space; working with the public sector, charities and impact start-ups to tackle some of the biggest challenges around fundraising whilst developing innovation capabilities for some of the biggest charities in the UK. My previous role before &us had two areas of focus; consulting in healthcare, mainly helping to bring patient experience to the front and centre of care in the NHS and coaching individuals and organisations in Design Thinking.
What do you do for fun outside of work?
I feel like these are quite generic answers (but it’s true!)… travel, reading, sport. I’ve spent time travelling South and Central America in recent years. I love reading, anything from an easy crime thriller by the pool on holiday or using my commute to dig into a strategy or innovation book. Sport and exercise helps give me a break from thinking; a spin class, weights, netball or tennis in the summer.
Talk to me about…
Facilitation, warm-ups/energisers (I’ve got a good bank of different ones), Design Thinking process (DD).