Values driven life

“Wow. You’ve really found your vocation.”

These words were spoken by an old colleague at a funeral I conducted for a mutual friend. We hadn’t seen each other for years. I’d been his boss, running a large team in a Council. It was a moment of realisation for me, that I’d done a bit of a journey since we’d last met. Since then, I’d gone on to set up businesses, a charity, qualified in a range of skills, been a Trustee on a range of Boards and a consultant for 16 years. Many people know me from my consultancy life. Here’s my circuitous route to celebrancy.

I started my working life at BBC TV Centre in London in the heady late-70s. The culture was curious, creative, courageous. Their values were quality, diversity, integrity, access for all. I’d seek this ethos for the rest of my working life. Returning to Scotland in the 80s, I worked my way up in the arts and local government over 30 years, growing my skills and expertise in strategy, media relations, communication, marketing, public relations, stakeholder engagement, culture change, customer service. I gained qualifications in Counselling, Life Coaching and Executive Coaching. I sat on diverse Boards: The Arches, Social Care Ideas Factory, Caledonia Cremations and was an Advisor to Stirling University, Telford College, Scottish Arts Council. Then it was time for my own thing:

2010 Set up consultancies delivering change, strategy and service design in arts, government and charity sectors: Plan B Collective and later, Only Human Ltd.

2012 Launched Final Fling, a multi-award winning platform to encourage us all to think about and plan for end of life. I ran it for a decade.

2014 Founded the Humanist charity, A Quiet Revolution and over a decade trained and developed a network of celebrants. (I’ve now handed over the reigns to the team.)

2016 Achieved a Masters in Design Innovation (Service Design) from Glasgow School of Art. Launched Only Human (Rites) Ltd and ran the consultancy for 10 years.

2025-6 Gap year heralding my Anthesis… the next stage of my flowering.

My Masters was a delight. Aged 56 and in a cohort of 55 international bright-young-things, I was old enough to be their mother. My excitement at returning to full-time learning saw me win the Chairman’s Medal for Innovation and the Innovation School’s inauguralInnovation by Design prize. The focus of my thesis: transforming 21st Century Funerals. I started applying my new service design skills with Snook, Scotland’s leading service design agency working with clients, Macmillan, improve end of life experiences. Over the next few years I applied co-creation and innovation design skills to place-making ‘back home’, helping Stranraer and Old Luce Development Trusts develop community-led Place Plans; funding-ready. By the time I’d finished up, Stranraer had around £50 million being pumped into the town’s transformation. And I helped Dumfries & Galloway Council engage across the region to develop a £20 million eco-restoration plan for the 200 mile long Solway Coast and Marine Project (SCAMP), which would also be integral to Stranraer’s resurgence. Immersing myself in ‘a sense of place’, I used my Gap Year to travel widely in Japan, South Korea, New York, Ottawa, Montreal, Vancouver Island, Seattle, New Mexico, Salt Lake City, Orkney, the Moray Coast and southern Ireland. I’m yet to discover where my experiences and inspirations will take me next. That’s the nature of Anthesis.

Past lives

Find out more about Projects I’ve delivered and Clients I’ve worked for.

See what I’m blethering about on LinkedIn.