About
I’m a researcher, writer, adviser and human problem-solver interested in how we understand ourselves, connect with one another, and make the lives, communities and workplaces we share work better.
I tend to notice around me things that don't quite work, get curious about the reasons why, and then try to do something about them. I'm incredibly allergic to both cats and complacency, it seems.
My curiosity and efforts tend to manifest themselves as research -- and quite often also as writing, or in creating tools or experiments, gatherings or conversations-- and occasionally even as a company or two.
UPWARD is where much of my curiosity lives in public.
Poke around, get to know a bit more about me, and feel free to ask questions, if you have any. After all, one-sided conversations are never quite as fun.
If you're here as a potential colleague, client, or collaborator, here's information that might be relevant for you.
I turn a fuzzy human problem into a question you can act on: framing it, gathering real evidence from the people involved, and translating what comes back into decisions, language and structures your team can use. Sometimes that is a research project, sometimes a workshop, sometimes a long advisory relationship.
Research, facilitation and building things. I have run studies, designed and led workshops, founded and operated a company, and spent a long time in rooms where strategy meets actual human behaviour. UPWARD Insights is the vehicle for all of it.
Ones where people are the mechanism: belonging and retention, trust between functions, how a team makes decisions, what your customers actually experience versus what your deck says they do. If the answer is genuinely a spreadsheet, I am not your person.
One hour of thinking together. Think with me is a single paid session -- bring a problem, leave with a sharper question and a first move. No proposal, no procurement.
Grow with me is a three, six or twelve month commitment with regular sessions -- for founders and leaders who want a thinking partner rather than a one-off engagement.
Pop quiz: No wrong answers
1 / 10
Like-mindedness isn't necessary to interact or work together... but it might make it easier if you know where I'm coming from. Most answers here are valid — but which would you choose?
The future is bright: like the light of a new day, or the light of an oncoming train?
Start small with a single session, or bring me into something longer.
