Currently, I work as a freelance consultant, providing strategy, coaching and training across a wide-range of private sectors. Most recently, I have worked with the CEO and Executive team or a major UK infrastructure maintenance company to create an organizational and cultural growth plan. At present, I am delivering a comprehensive one-year training programme within the further education system, to accelerate 200 participants to becoming outstanding leaders of change. My background in strategy was at McKinsey and Co., where I led and participated in a broad range of studies focusing in strategy and operations. I left McKinsey to develop a start-up and subsequently gained a range of senior line management experience. I hope that this experience may be helpful in supporting SAPERE as it develops its own vision and strategy. I also have a very strong interest in education and language: Through one of the businesses I worked for, I trained as a Master Practitioner in NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming), which I now use in business coaching and training. This training developed my skills and interest in the use of language and questioning techniques. Prior to McKinsey, I studied Zoology at Cambridge University, and stayed on to do a PhD. Around this time, I also spent a year teaching in Kenya and six months in South Africa. This experience, together with being brought up in a family where education was always central to our lives (my mother was a primary school headmistress), has made me passionate about education. My interest has been even more heightened over the last few years as I now have three young children in the London education system! Finally, I am the Treasurer and a Non-Executive Director of the Tropical Biology Association, a nongovernmental, non-profit organization that works in partnership with environmental institutions throughout Africa, training and bringing together conservation biologists and practitioners from Africa and Europe. I became involved with the TBA by working informally with the MD to develop a vision and strategy for the organization. I was subsequently asked to join the Board, and am now working with the MD to further develop our fund-raising capabilities.