It starts with growing up on a self-sufficient farm in Suffolk. We didn’t have language like ‘regenerative’ or ‘circular’ then, but you could have called it both those things.

There were plants grown for a bio-fuel generator, rare breed animals typical of the region, buildings made from shipping containers. We even had our own sewage system, designed from Steiner principles.

All this to say, I had a head start on thinking differently.

When I moved to London to study, modern city life clashed with everything that felt natural to me. I hated the waste I saw.
I’d always been confused by plastic. Why did we invent something that couldn’t break down? How was it ever a solution to dig big holes & put our rubbish in the ground?

I gravitated to food waste solutions though - volunteering with FoodCycle & Rejuce; campaigning with Feedback Global, The Pig Idea & with homelessness charities; & working at Rubies in the Rubble.

From idealism to ideas

In the meantime, I realised that campaigning wasn’t persuasive enough for enough people to change behaviours. We had to work with global systems & processes, work with our existing habits & behaviours.

I discovered design thinking & I’ve been hooked ever since.

I asked myself the question: how do we design experiences & businesses that are desirable, feasible & viable to sustain longterm change that’s better for people & planet?

Lead me to Library of Things

Then I met Bex & Emma, & you could say the rest is history. With them, & the help of many others, we developed Library of Things. It started in 2014 as a grassroots project in a library in South London - could we get a community sharing stuff? It’s now a global movement, with 1000s of them in communities around the world. Early on we shared knowledge via tours, webinars & toolkits. Then in 2019 we hunkered down to make it a replicable plug & play offer that could live in any communal space & we helped turn London into the biggest sharing city in the world.

Now I help others make the radical realistic

From my time with Library of Things & other mission-driven projects, I’ve developed a deep expertise in doing business differently, business that's regenerative for the planet, the communities it serves & the people that work for it.

Some of what that means includes:

• designing holistically impactful products, services & businesses, from start to finish & from top to bottom

• embedding listening & participation into the service, so that it’s always relevant & as desirable as possible to as many people as possible

• cultivating a team culture & ways of working that are human & nurturing, creating psychological safety so that people can do their best work

I love to talk about participatory design & impact innovation - recently I’ve done so for UN, Design Museum, BBC News & more.
In 2024 I was recognised as Management Today’s top 35 women under 35 in leadership.