Advisory services

I enjoy the variety of consulting on strategy, analysis and communications. My specialisms are economics (especially innovation, development, public finance, health and climate change) and using evidence to inform choice. I am available to support values-based organisations and programmes.

Executive coaching

I lead with integrity, kindness and purpose. I have led high-impact teams in the public and private sectors – ranging from a managing large teams and multi-billion annual budgets in the civil service, to leading a data-science and tech based information service for low-income farmers through ten-fold growth in impact. I mentor next-generation leaders, providing a mixture of advice, networks and, where necessary, a sympathetic ear.

A book: Moonshot

After three decades of working on innovation, technology and public policy, from various perspectives, I am writing a book setting out a policymakers’ guide to innovation: why does it matter, which innovations are priorities, and how should the government go about supporting them? The book both summarises what we have learned, but also makes some disruptive suggestions. These include an update to benefit cost ratio calculations, changes to the Haldane Principle, and the proper role of new pull instruments such as Advance Market Commitments. As the leader of the team that introduced the world’s first AMC, I am well placed to guide readers through the complexities of this essential but under-researched, and often inaccessible, reasearch are.

An ethical start-up: crowd-sourced consumer ESG

Consumers repeatedly demonstrate that many of them want to direct their purchases to products and services whose values they share. But the time and difficulty of finding out who is behind what we buy is makes that impractical. We need an app – on our phones, and as a browser plugin – that tells us quickly which product most aligns with our concerns. I’m developing an app that will link every barcode to a product and a company, each of which will be ranked in multiple dimensions by a community of volunteers (think of Wikipedia).

The aim is to build a trusted, non-commercial platform that protects your data, which integrates easily into your shopping.

Current research

As well as putting ideas into a book in an accessible way, I’m working on some of the same ideas in more formal settings, with the aim of peer-reviewed publication. My current research priorities are:

• Better Benefit Cost Ratios – How to appraise investment choices and take account of social value. (I think this might be ground-breaking.)
• Credible commitments: a new instrument for governments to make credible commitments, using the example of emissions targets but more widely applicable.
• Innovation & Public Purpose: Updating the Haldane Principle to take account of social objectives.
• Economic Growth and Development as an Emergent Property of a Complex Adaptive System.

Podcast: Development Drums

I used to present, produce and edit the Development Drums podcast – one of the first, successful podcasts (which has had millions of downloads). It got squeezed out by other commitments: and I’m interested in reviving it. In the last incarnation, many of the episodes were two white dudes talking and I am pretty sure that the world does not need more of that. But we do need a long form, in depth, evidence-based exploration of issues in global economics. So I would welcome ideas on whether and how to revive Development Drums.

Getting a job

I miss leading a team with a mission I care about. I miss the energy, the satisfaction of supporting my colleagues to succeed, and the sense of achievement when we bring about real-world change.

I don’t need to be the CEO again, as long as I get to lead a team of passionate people making a positive difference to people’s lives.

I am particularly interested in returning to public service, but open to other ideas. If you know of any mission-driven organisations looking for a colleague like me, please let me know.