My consultancy work is grounded on the belief that creative thinking helps make good businesses better.
Having spent a full career directing design and branding programmes, leading strategic and creative teams, and building an international business, I now work primarily in an advisory capacity, drawing on my experience to help entrepreneurs, creative businesses and corporate organisations.
My track record includes brand strategy, identity, communications, customer experience, service design, research, brand management across multiple channels, place branding, retail environment design, signing and wayfinding.
Increasingly companies, organisations and places are in search of ways to articulate their individual stories through words as well as imagery. I develop engaging narratives and relevant messages by writing clear and compelling text – ideas that stick and stories that resonate.
My skills, honed from experience, allow me to listen, to mentor, to encourage and to inspire action. Sometimes collaborative creativity, cultural sensitivity and diplomacy are as critical as traditional leadership skills in bringing about innovation, growth and sustainable success. I provide senior counsel for executive boards and teams to help examine strategic branding issues, resolve problems and recommend action plans.
Leading projects in Asia, the Middle East, USA and Europe has given me the opportunity to work with different cultures and communities. From transnationals to SMEs, I have in-depth experience of a number of industry sectors including financial and business services, education, arts and culture, regeneration, tourism, transport and infrastructure.
As a designer I firmly believe that creative thinking is a valuable business process that can bring tangible advantage to companies and services. The role of the designer is often that of observer, interrogator and empathist – to see problems in a new light and to find solutions that work in people’s real world experience.
Over recent years assignments have included:
- Marketing advice for chief executive of an independent holiday company and creative direction for their in-house creative team
- Brand strategy, positioning and design programme for a Middle East based bank including advice to chief executive on communications
- Mentoring founder directors of growing creative consultancies
- Advising a South East Asian public transport system on wayfinding strategy
- Brand proposition and marketing strategy for a new digital film distribution service
- Brand design for start-up New York ceramics studio
- Brand consultancy for a leading modern arts and cultural centre
- Brand positioning and narrative for a hospitality venue and vineyard
- Communications and writing support for a therapy foundation
- Inward investment campaign and creative/digital strategy communications for a central London borough
- Brand narrative and online communications toolkit for a South Coast regional destination