Background

The now-implausible truth is that I began my career as a corporate finance lawyer in the City with Hogan Lovells. Given how highly I prize creativity, I put this choice down to a total implosion of imagination and self-knowledge (as one senior partner put it, the last thing you want is a creative lawyer). Still, I learnt a lot - in particular, how to work in teams, how to ask ‘stupid’ questions of smart people, and how to run big, fast-moving and demanding projects, all of which has proved invaluable training.

Shortly after leaving the law, a slightly madcap hobby I had started began to gather steam, and this was where I really cut my hosting teeth. The Hot Breakfast was a membership-based community that brought ambitious, purpose-driven people from all sorts of backgrounds together first thing in the morning to eat eggs and talk about how to change the world. Word spread, the membership grew into the thousands, and soon I was having to learn all sorts of ingenious ways to bring out the best in meetings among strangers who ostensibly had nothing in common and hadn’t even had their first coffee of the day. We developed lots of different formats for our gatherings - walks, talks, curated small groups and “Big Breakfast” parties - and spun out a successful peer mentoring programme.

But by the time 2020 hit, I increasingly felt like I wanted to work more squarely on the political and social issues that I could see fracturing my family, community and country. I joined Larger Us, a small, not-for-profit organisation offering psychologically-informed approaches to bridging divides and broadening coalitions through change-making. I designed and hosted the events and courses, helped to build the community, and led the ‘climate conversations’ training programme, which is still flourishing.

In 2024 left to set up my own organisation, The Social Gym, which helps individuals and organisations build stronger relationships through structured, evidence-based training plans. I do this alongside the event design and hosting work that this site describes: I see the two to be entirely complementary. I’m also a tutor on Imperial College’s Innovation & Design Engineering MA and am a proud trustee of Globe Community Project, a charity addressing loneliness among isolated and under-served groups in and around the London borough of Tower Hamlets.

And the rest

I read an unfashionable amount of fiction (and non-fiction); like to cook (but love to feed); have to be exercised daily (like a spaniel); and am an active member of my local Buddhist community.

I live in north-east London with my boyfriend, Jonny, and our daughter.

Why I do what I do

At the most basic (but important) level, I do this because I love it, and I find a lot of it intuitive and natural. I was brought up in a family where bringing people together - especially around the kitchen table - was the clearest expression of love, and conversation was the path to connection. Those neural pathways run deep.

But like most of us, I have a complicated relationship with groups and oscillate between wanting to belong and resenting belonging. And like most facilitators, I am perhaps more naturally an outsider, a contrarian: while it might look like you’re at the centre of everything as a host, if you’re doing your job well then really you’re in the background, hiding in plain sight.

Perhaps for those reasons I find group dynamics enthralling: witnessing power, attention, and enthusiasm ebb and flow, whether amongst a squad of friends, an ops team, or at a conference - it’s fascinating to me. And so is learning and creating ways to help the dynamic move in the direction that best serves the group. Some of it is science, some of it is art, and all of it I wish one day to fully master.