Bio
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Paul has had parallel careers as an economist, researcher, evaluator, manager, leader, consultant, executive coach, business coach, counsellor, change agent, facilitator and speaker.
He has held leadership roles with some of the world’s biggest and most innovative knowledge-based consultancies (eg. MORI, RBA, Nielsen, Urbis, TNS Kantar, Instinct and Reason), won awards for his ground-breaking research, and been awarded Fellowship of the UK Market Research Society in recognition of his pioneering work in the fields of research and stakeholder engagement.
Paul’s work spans the commercial, government, and not-for-profit sectors. He has helped many organisations to grow and develop, especially through assistance with strategic review, business planning, employee engagement, and ensuring a focus on external clients/customers/key stakeholders.
Paul’s work in the government sector has been truly ground-breaking. He was the first Research & Engagement Manager with City of York Council, where he pioneered approaches to research and engagement that became a model for many councils and public service providers around the UK and overseas. Paul continues to lead the challenge for enhanced deliberative and participative democracy:
Have Our Elected Representatives Lost Their Political Licence to Operate?!
Paul was a pioneer in the field of community engagement, community planning, partnership planning, and ‘place-making’. He was a key member of teams that facilitated regeneration programmes in some of the UK’s most disadvantaged areas – old industrial areas, transitioning towns and cities, unpopular public housing estates, and areas subject to ‘riots’ in the 1980s.
He led the consultation and engagement exercise to decide what to do with 25 Cromwell Street, the former home of the serial killers, Fred and Rosemary West. Paul met with the victims’ relatives first and then the local community around the site, as part of a comprehensive process which was praised as a model of good practice.
Paul was CEO of a highly innovative, award-winning research consultancy in the UK, RBA, growing it from 5 to 50 people, attaining Investors in People accreditation (as well as ISO9001 Quality Assurance), and being asked to showcase this model of success at the 2002 MRS Conference – ‘If You Want Something Different, Do Something Different‘.
He trained as an executive coach in 1997, coaching many CEOs and business owners to help them achieve sustainable success. Over the course of his career, Paul has trained, mentored or coached more than 3,000 executives (including 1,800 researchers). He has assisted many organisations and professional bodies in designing and delivering development programmes for their employees and members.
One of Paul’s final projects in the UK before moving to Australia was the concept development and community & stakeholder engagement to help shape the magnificent King’s Place in London, also helping to steer it through the council planning process:
King’s Place, King’s Cross, London
Paul moved to Australia in 2005, where he continued to have impact in leadership and change management roles, including assisting the National Coalition for Suicide Prevention in pulling together a National Research Action Plan for halving the number of suicides in Australia. Paul mapped out the stakeholder engagement strategy, and facilitated workshops with the key stakeholders:
Saving Lives – the Ultimate in Impactful Research
Paul is also well known for his ground-breaking work in the field of workplace mental health and wellbeing. He has carried out numerous projects for employers and organisations; assisted beyondblue and the Mentally Healthy Workplace Alliance in developing and launching Heads Up (including demonstrating that a mentally healthy workplace is second only to pay in attracting employees):
Heads Up for Optimal Workplace Mental Health
…and undertaken studies for SuperFriend which include mapping out the characteristics of a mentally healthy workplace and designing the evidence-based national benchmarking tool ‘Indicators of a Thriving Workplace’:
SuperFriend Indicators of a Thriving Workplace
Building on his pioneering work in the UK to put service users and carers at the centre of service planning and delivery for health and social care, Paul carried out work to help develop and launch the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) in Australia and presented at the NDIS launch conference in Melbourne in 2013:
Throughout his career, Paul has been widely published and has been a much sought-after speaker for conferences and events. He has won several awards for best paper and best presentation. Paul has also twice been acknowledged by TEDxSydney for having ‘ideas worth spreading’; at TEDxSydney 2014, he got to outline his revolutionary concept for ‘Digital Life Saving’ at a packed Sydney Opera House.
Paul won the AMSRS Best Paper award for ‘Research as a Life Changing Experience‘ and subsequent Best Presentation awards for ‘The Best Way to Predict the Future is to Create It‘ and ‘Big Picture Thinking, Big Picture Doing‘ because he was able to use dozens of real life case studies demonstrating the positive, tangible impact of research and engagement. Many of these cases are inspirational, including finding new ways to encourage gambling addicts to seek counselling support, designing funerals, and tackling suicidal loneliness.