Jane Cockerell
I’m a former aid worker and CEO, with twenty years of scaling social impact in challenging, uncertain (sometimes straight-up crazy…) environments. Having also developed expertise in strategic leadership coaching and consulting, I now support thoughtful, ambitious leaders to navigate uncertainty and to grow resilient, impactful, thriving organizations.
Longer blurb if you’re interested…
Following a short career in corporate management, I spent many years leading large aid projects in Africa and then a decade as a non-profit CEO. I have rapidly grown projects and organisations within challenging contexts, developing and supporting teams across cultures and remote locations.
It’s been a ride. In the early days, as well as all the amazing experiences and sense of purpose, I experienced burnout and depression. Sometimes, I was talented and high-performing and sometimes, I could be as mad as a box of frogs…
I began to spot similar patterns in others, people I respected who were also running great organisations or projects so became increasingly fascinated with our ‘human-ness’ and what it is to be and deliver at our best, no matter what the world throws at us and became a perpetual student of leadership.
My ‘Ghetto MBA’ has encompassed tech trends to systems theory, entrepreneurship to psychology, strategic foresight to non-duality, and I’m a certified Transformative Coach.
My curiosity has led me to consultancy, specialising in strategy and Board leadership development. Having seen both gaps and over-engineering in many conventions of ‘good practice’, I co-create alongside leaders, giving equal value to process and psychology, mindful of resources and time available. Outcomes include greater organisational clarity and an enhanced capacity for strategic thinking and sound decision making within the senior team and Board.
On request, I also mentor CEO’s, supporting them to navigate uncertainty and overcome overwhelm.
My volunteer work includes roles as Chair of 52 Lives, as a coach with start-up accelerator Zinc VC and Strategy Advisor with the Foundation for Social Improvement. I’m a member of the International Association of Facilitators, Asociation of Business Psychologists and a Fellow of the RSA.
In real life, I love wandering about in nature, lifting heavy things, get over-excited about quality stationery and have been crowned the World’s Best Ninja Auntie Camp-Builder.
Lin Gillians
Enabled successful development and sustainability of organisations in the Voluntary Sector through Chief Executive leadership since 1992. Specialist Management Consultant and Interim since 2004. Successfully increased funding, sustainability and effectiveness of organisations. Proven track record in creating strategy and providing operational, financial and personnel management support.
Key skills:
- Interim Chief Executive Officer – front-line and infrastructure
- Executive level project management
- Experienced manager financial, HR and operations
- Organisational change, re-structure
- Strategic planning, business planning
- Monitoring, evaluation, impact assessment
- Voluntary and community sector specialist
- Health and social care expertise
- Merger feasibility and implementation
Vanessa Swann
Organisational Strategy & Development Consultant / Executive Mentor
I am an experienced former CEO of a major arts / social enterprise charity, Cockpit Arts, and have a proven track record of successfully starting up, growing and expanding Arts, Charities & Social Enterprise organisations, including turnaround and enterprise development. I have been consulting for several years specialising in Organisational Development and Change Management including governance, strategic business planning, income generation, stakeholder engagement and communications. I am a qualified Social Enterprise adviser with coaching, mentoring and facilitator experience; an experienced Trustee in the visual arts and music sector and a Consultant Grant Assessor. As well as undertaking organisational briefs, I provide personal mentoring and coaching to CEOs and managers.
Examples of recent assignments for clients including Arts Council Wales, Nesta innovation foundation, CAF Global Alliance, SE Assist Brighton, School for Social Entrepreneurs and The Fore:
- Change management for a community arts organisation involving a new communication and political influencing strategy
- Strategic support involving an organisational restructure and repositioning of a regional arts centre with business planning ad HR advice
- 360-degree organisational review of a local authority-owned performing arts centre to achieve cost savings and improve operational effectiveness.
- Strategic support to align services offered by a regional crafts centre with local authority tourism strategies.
- Facilitation for a national social sector organisation helping managers working remotely to decide on new ways of working together to better support organisational goals.
- Research and brokering of introductions between UK and Russian organisations involved in social change and civil society development.
AREAS OF EXPERTISE
Strategic planning
Business planning
Social enterprise development
Fundraising and earned income/sustainable funding
Change management
Charity management and governance
Leadership development
Stakeholder engagement
Partnership working
Negotiation
Property development
Premises management
Robin Brady
Through measuring impact, designing strategy and delivering organisational change, Robin Brady guides and supports Social Impact Organisations to improve the effect they have on the social fabric of communities and the wellbeing of individuals and families. From managing capital funding programmes for Arts Council England to running a successful Social Impact consultancy, Robin’s journey is proof positive that staying curious and passionate about making a difference can change the way the world works. Today Robin helps organisations to identify the social impact of their programmes around the world, delivers SROI assessments, and leads strategy development and organisational change in NGOs to improve their impact. Robin’s client list is as varied as his interests and includes both large and small agencies such as Oxfam GB, HelpAge International, PSI, Leonard Cheshire Disability, The Resource Alliance and Arthritis Care.
Robin’s significant experience of consulting organisations and working in multi-country settings and with multi-country programmes has allowed him to take on numerous roles on various assignments around the world. Robin’s field experience includes conducting assignments in the United Kingdom, Mozambique, Sierra Leone, DR Congo, Uganda, Zambia, Cambodia, Zimbabwe, Kenya, Ethiopia, South Africa, Malawi, Chad
and The Philippines; managing change programmes, providing leadership support, running focus groups, facilitating stakeholder meetings, working with beneficiary groups, overseeing survey data collection, data analysis, etc.
Steve Wyler
Steve is an independent consultant in the field of social change and innovation.
He works with third sector and public sector organisations, and specialises in:
- Research, analysis, and policy formation
- Collaboration, alliance building, mergers
- Strategic reviews and business planning
- Making a case to funders and policy makers
- Impact studies
- Leadership mentoring
Recent clients include:
- Access Foundation
- Carnegie UK Trust
- Esmee Fairbairn Foundation
- Essex Council
- Forum for the Future
- Greenhouse Sports
- Ealing Council
- Hackney Council
- Homeless Link
- Local Trust
- One Westminster
- Paddington Development Trust
- The Peel Institute
- Power to Change
- Shoreditch Trust
- The School for Social Entrepreneurs
- Social Enterprise UK
- Young Westminster Foundation
Steve is co-convenor of the Better Way initiative, and a writer. Recent publications include:
- Community responses in times of crisis, 2020
- In Our Hands: A history of community business, 2017
Over the last twenty years Steve has played a leading role in the fields of localism, community ownership, community enterprise, social enterprise, and social investment.
In 2017-18 he was a panel member of the Inquiry into the Future of Civil Society
As CEO of Locality, he grew the country’s largest network of community enterprises, delivering national programmes on community organising, neighbourhood planning, community asset ownership, and neighbourhood budgets.
Over the previous fifteen years Steve worked for voluntary agencies and independent grant-makers. For example in the 1990s, working with homeless agencies, he ran Homeless Network, co-ordinated the Rough Sleepers Initiative in London, and set up Off the Streets and into Work.
Steve has been a member of various Government advisory groups on localism, social enterprise, and the third sector (Cabinet Office, Department for Communities and Local Government, Ministry of Justice). Steve helped to establish Social Enterprise UK and the Adventure Capital Fund (parent body of the Social Investment Business). He was awarded an OBE in the 2011 New Year Honours List.
Contact details:
- Email: stevewyler56@gmail.com
- Phone: 07958 350637
Hilary Barnard
Hilary Barnard is a strategy, change and organisational development consultant. He works across the third sector, and with statutory and private sector partners in the UK and internationally.
In today’s challenging conditions, with insight and creativity Hilary helps organisations to find strategies and sustainable solutions that ensure effective delivery of charites’ expertise, services and campaigns. He works with clients on rethinking and reinventing business models and approaches to ensure continued relevance and sustainability.
Relevant assignments include:
- Strategy reviews for Citizens Income Trust, Oxford Research Group, Anti Bullying Alliance, Play England, Macfarlane Trust, PLIAS Resettlement and IPSEA
- Governance reviews for National Governors Association, CISV International, Freud Museum, BTCV, Crohn’s & Colitis UK, and Article 19; and under the AIM Prospering Boards programme
- Leadership programmes for the Association of Independent Museums, Parkinson’s UK, Westminster City Council and NAPIMS (Nigeria)
- Facilitating Boards, teams and partnerships (International Bar Association Human Rights Institute, Blenheim/HAGA, BOND/Young Minds, Volunteering Matters, Bridge Mental Health)
- Supporting fifuteen merger processes and much partnership development
- Undertaking service reviews (NDCS Family Support Service) and organisational reviews (Friends of the Earth, Tilbury on the Thames Trust and Elfrida Society)
- Policy and project management of the Children’s Workforce Network (Sector Skills Councils, regulators, Central and Local Government)
- Advising successful 8 figure pfeg led funding bid to Government for financial competence training in schools
- Devising generic competency framework for permanent staff in Students Unions (NUS Charitable Services commission)
- Evaluations of the DCLG funded £1 million+ Talking Together programme (commissioned by TimeBank), the Skills for Care funded Hospice education and training project (commissioned by Hospice UK), and the income generation NSS workstream (commissioned by ACEVO)
- Action learning/change programme for Valuing People for local partnership implementation (commissioned by Department of Health)
- Product/service reviews for Living Streets and CABE
- Stream of ENHANCE organisational development projects for Lloyds Bank Foundation
Hilary is a a Chartered Fellow of the CIPD, a member of the Organisational Development and Innovation Network, and a Fellow of the Chartered Management Institute. He has been a Senior Visiting Fellow at Cass Business School and the external examiner for the MSc in voluntary and community sector studies at Birkbeck College, University of London.
Hilary has written widely on leadership, strategy, governance and organisational development in the sector for Civil Society Finance, Civil Society Governance, Leader to Leader, Network, Governance & Compliance and Caritas. He is the author of Step Change (Cass CCE 2012), Improving Equality & Diversity: A guide to Third Sector Chief Executives (ACEVO 2011), Whose Localism? (Cass CCE 2011), Big Society, Cuts & Consequences (Cass CCE 2010), Really Intelligent Commissioning (ACEVO 2009), Vertical Integration (NCB/VCS-Engage 2007), Added Value, Changing Lives: a social capital study (VAW 2006), and Design For Health (Mind 2003). He is a regular book reviewer on strategy and governance for Governing Matters (NGA). Hilary’s evaluation report (2015) of the TimeBank Talking Together programme can be accessed on the TimeBank website. He is the co-author of Improving Equality & Diversity: a guide for third sector Chief Executives (ACEVO 2011) and Strategies for Success (NCVO 1994).
He collaborates regularly with Ruth Lesirge, also a member of the Experience Network, under the umbrella of HBRL Consulting.
Marcus Ward
Marcus is a highly experienced and accredited management consultant and former charity CEO, with well-developed strategic, income-generating, financial and operational management skills. He is a creative and innovative thinker who originally studied law, and worked as a Director in the commercial sector, prior to spending the last 20+ years working for and with charities and social enterprises as CEO and then consultant.
Marcus is a partner in Peach Consultancy, which has undertaken work in almost every discrete area of the voluntary sector, and conservatively raised over £50 million for civil society organisations. Peach Consultancy works with many funders, and is probably the most widely accredited voluntary sector consultanty in the UK.
We specialise in:
- capacity building, organisational development and governance audits
- strategic reviews and business planning
- income generation, fund-raising and social enterprise development
- options appraisals and feasibility studies
- tendering applications and commissioning
- partnership development and collaborative working
- social research, monitoring and evaluation
Previous larger national clients include:
- The Alzheimer’s Society
- Down’s Syndrome Association
- Age UK England
- Electoral Reform Society
- Comic Relief, Lloyds Bank Foundation, Young Foundation
- Breast Cancer Care
- MIND UK
- ACEVO (4-year ‘FCR national training’ programme and ‘Costing Personalised Budgets’ programme)
- NAVCA (‘Stronger Fitter Consortiums’ and the ‘Tendering Support’ programmes)
- British Deaf Association
- Spinal Injuries Association
- Music in Detention
- Bail for Immigration Detainees
Previous SME clients include:
- 170 Community Project, Bonnington Centre and Chalkhill Community Facility
- CVSs and volunteer bureaux in Croydon, Cumbria, Wakefield, Lambeth, Cornwall, Lewisham, Oxford, Sutton, Hammersmith and Fulham, Haringey, Harrow and Hounslow
- Disability Croydon and Choice in Hackney
- Eaves Housing for Women and Agenda for Change
- Age UKs in Enfield, Croydon, Redbridge, Haringey
- MIND Cumbria and MIND Dartford
- CAB Epson and Ewell
- Headway Basingstoke
We are, or have previously been approved/recommended consultants for:
- ACEVO
- NAVCA
- Community Development Foundation
- Adventure Capital Fund
- Lloyds Bank Foundation
- Rape Crisis (England & Wales)
- MIND UK
- Age UK
- Evelyn Oldfield Unit
- Several local infrastructure organisations and CVSs
In addition to direct work with many civil society organisations, Marcus has also undertaken a wide range of organisational development and capacity building projects for representative and umbrella groups, and public sector agencies including Local Authorities, and Health Agencies.
Andrea Kelmanson
- Fundamental review and Organisational Development
- New ways of addressing old problems: Strategic Review and planning
- Organisation turnaround, crisis management, problem resolution
- Strategic development of volunteering
I’ve been working in the sector for over 40 years and have known, worked with and for most types of organisations and issues pursued by voluntary organisations.
I pride myself on being a straight-talking consultant; someone who pulls no punches in a genuine effort to get to the very heart of the many organisational and individual challenges I face in the course of my work.
My core focus is always the needs of my clients’ beneficiairies, whose interests I find are all too often lost sight of in the serious rough and tumble of organisational life and survival in the sector these days.
I tackle work on small scale, one off consultancy assignments as happily as larger, medium term assignments, in either straightforward ‘consultant’ roles, or in the role of Interim CEO.
My recent assignments have involved me in the world of volunteering development in fundraising charities; in the fascinating – and new charity – world of Students’ Unions, and in helping with the development of new Social Enterprises in the criminal justice field.
I am primarily concerned with working alongside organisations to create sparkling futures for the people and issues they are seeking to support.
Libby Cooper
Libby operates as Director of Amber Analysis, a UK based research, evaluation and capacity building consultancy that works internationally and in the UK with charities, NGOs and community organisations; with grant making organisations; and with central and local government departments. It aims to:
* Improve the quality of social change programmes
* Strengthen the effectiveness of international and UK based charities, NGOs and community organisations
* Influence the grant-making and evaluation strategies of donors
Libby works in the UK and internationally on:
- Programme and project evaluation
- Developing a Theory of Change
- Developing evaluation frameworks
- Organisational review
- Project and grants assessment
- Capacity building and organisational/project development
- Strategic planning
- Training in organisational management and self-evaluation
- Needs assessment
- Research into social development and civil society
- Developing grant-making and evaluation policies for donors
- Government and civil society relations – international
Recent clients include:
The Directory of Social Change: Evaluation of their Armed Forces Charities Project
Civil Society Development Foundation: Helped to develop a new strategic plan for this grant-giving Foundation
Seychelles Ministry of Labour: Research study into youth unemployment
Target TB: Design of a Theory of Change and evaluation framework for all programmes across Africa and Asia and an evaluation training programme in Zambia for all partners
DFID: Assessment of civil society projects working on poverty issues
EC programme in Bosnia: Capacity building of civil society organisations to help them engage in policy dialogue with government
British Red Cross: Evaluation of a refugee programme
Mencap: Two evaluations of a national programme for people with learning disabilities
Equinet: Four yearly evaluations of Equinet – a network of 37 Equality Bodies across 27 European countries