Stephanie is the Director of Innovation and Practice at Involve. She oversees and leads a cross section of projects that practically deliver public deliberation and engagement on key decisions. Her work includes leading citizen assemblies, juries and other public participation processes and ensuring that these processes deliver impact, innovation, and great outcomes. Recent projects include Hackney Citizen Jury, Waltham Forest Citizen Assembly and Thriving Places.
Stephanie is an established leader in the charity sector, with over 20 years experience working on complex projects, bringing people together, and ensuring that they deliver impact on sustainability and equity. She is a skilled facilitator, project director and is able to navigate a variety of political spaces. She joined Involve from Bond - the membership body for the UK’s international development agencies where she was their CEO and was previously Deputy CEO and Chief Change Officer at Forum for the Future.
At Bond, Stephanie instigated the use of Citizen Panels to engage a mini public on climate change and internationalism in advance of the Glasgow Climate Summit (COP26) and ensured that the results of these deliberations were fed into policy makers. She introduced a ‘locally led lab’ to drive a shift towards participative, locally led design and decision making in international development - that is explored here in catalysing locally led development. One of the results of this is a public accountability panel from the global south to advise and hold Bond, and Bond members, accountable.
At Forum for the Future she set up and led their systems change practice and oversaw the design and running of numerous participatory processes, including human centred design. Protein 2040, for example, used a range of tools and techniques including futures and systems change to shape a protein system that was just and sustainable. Other projects include founding the Sustainable Shipping Initiative and the Ship Recycling Transparency Initiative that improved conditions in ship recycling yards in India and Bangladesh; the West of England Carbon Challenge and Low Carbon energy futures with local authorities; and the Community Energy Coalition that resulted in the incorporation of community energy provision in government policy and increased public awareness of renewable energy opportunities.
She is dedicated to improving our democracy and creating a just and sustainable future and sees equity and public participation as central to delivering the change needed. She has written and spoken extensively about systems change and getting to a sustainable future. She authored Creating the Big Shift: system innovation for sustainability and is a regular speaker and tutor for University of Cambridge, the Green Building Council and the School of Systems Change. Outside work she is a practising artist - working to engage different constituencies on social and environmental issues through painting and printmaking. She is a trustee of Creative Response — a charity using art to support those with mental health difficulties.
