About

Trusted to deliver. Engaged to innovate.

Our team has been ‘in the room’ with regions across the world – driving and delivering change for the past 25 years – and it is this expertise that we bring to every project – how regions work, how big change is manifested, how deep infrastructure is funded and financed, how rapid innovation can be incubated, how regions can work together and with national and international counterparts and how citizens can be involved and engaged. Led by strategic digital and communications expert, Jane McLaughlin and sustainability and city strategy specialist, Ed Synnott, we have worked across energy, water, circular economy, mobility & transport and urban resilience, climate change adaptation and mitigation, human health and nature-based solutions.

Ed Synnott

Director, City Strategy

Ed Synnott is an international climate change strategy, resilience & sustainable cities expert with 28 years’ experience in urban sustainability and strategy at project development and city scale, including: leading the development of climate change and sustainability strategies for 5 major cities; providing sustainability advice to numerous heavy infrastructure and major site-wide projects; embedding climate change and sustainability assessment into spatial, social and economic measurement of cities; and breaking new ground in delivering the strategic sustainability assurance of the largest-multi-project, multi-delivery agent programme globally (the London 2012 Olympic Games Programme) on behalf of the Mayor of London and UK Government.

Ed’s experience began in policy and strategy in the NSW Cabinet Office, and has worked in and with city and regional governments in the UK, Australia, New Zealand, China and the Middle East, as well as extensively with the private and corporate sector internationally and with projects for the UK FCDO.

Ed is highly experienced in leading multi-disciplinary teams on large-scale, complex projects and has worked in both the private and public sectors. Ed has facilitated workshops, training, in-house seminars for many years and is comfortable working with small groups through to large crowds.

Key areas of expertise include:

  • Strategy, programme development, modelling and delivery
  • Multi-stakeholder engagement and design processes
  • Creative development and conceptualisation
  • Facilitation and communications

 

Technical expertise in:

  • Resilience and Systems Thinking
  • Assurance and governance
  • City-wide sustainability
  • Behaviour change
  • Carbon and energy
  • Waste
  • Healthy living

Jane McLaughlin

Director, Digital & Engagement

Expert in smart cities, digital, brand, communications, engagement and strategy, with over 29 years’ experience in delivering cross-sector, transformational projects, from cities and public/government, to major utilities, and corporate sectors in the UK and internationally.

Jane has delivered digital transformation, crisis communications, social media and engagement strategies and smart city innovations for clients in the UK, Europe and the United States. Jane has devised and delivered many complex communications initiatives – work has included development and implementation of new approaches to reporting, engagement, impact and behaviour change. Work has included digital transformation and online customer services for major utilities, global knowledge networks and learning platforms, portals and award-winning engagement and behaviour change campaigns, for clients in the UK, Europe and the United States, as well as government, corporate, Third Sector and creative industries.

With extensive experience in the water industry, Jane specialises in corporate social responsibility, sustainability and regulatory reporting, engagement and behaviour change, digital transformation, customer engagement for a number of major water companies, as well as work with regulators and stakeholders.

Key areas of expertise include:

  • Strategy
  • Creative communications
  • Digital transformation
  • Social media engagement
  • Stakeholder and customer engagement
  • Behaviour change
  • Innovation
  • Facilitation and workshops

Technical expertise in:

  • Brand and communications
  • Emergency communications
  • Creative direction
  • Digital technical direction
  • Project delivery

Bryony Boyle

Associate

Bryony is a sustainable development professional with over 10 years’ experience across the private, public and charity sectors, and a proven project and partnership manager with excellent communication and stakeholder management skills.

Bryony has extensive experience in strategy development and project initiation and delivery, with particular focus on climate change and the built environment, energy efficiency and fuel poverty, neighbourhood strategy, community engagement and behaviour change.

Bryony brings a long history of working in cross-sector partnerships, starting her career delivering local government support programmes for the Energy Saving Trust, to working for the Greater London Authority and the London Sustainable Development Commission, including developing and delivering the London Leaders programme and, most recently, Selby Big Local, to enable local people develop skills and to create lasting change and benefits in their community, and the Institute of Sustainability, an independent charity working to support cross sector collaboration and innovation.

Key areas of expertise include:

  • Project development and management
  • Stakeholder and partnership engagement
  • Sustainability strategy and behaviour change

Anna-Marie Casas

Associate

Anna-Marie is a National Council for the Training of Journalists (NCTJ) qualified newspaper journalist, content/copywriter, magazine editor and communications specialist with 30 years’ experience.

She began her career as a local newspaper journalist, heading newsrooms reporting on local government, community and business news, and crime for more than a decade, returning later in her career as a sub-editor. Since then, Anna-Marie has gone on to lead consumer and corporate publications at managing editor level as well as international campaigns for organisations, including the British Government’s UK Trade & Investment arm (targeting SMEs) and Europe’s premier health, sports and leisure group, David Lloyd Leisure, where she was PR manager leading on all UK and European external communications for four years.

Anna-Marie has played a pivotal role in target market penetration and business development, harnessing her extensive media experience, skills and knowledge working on both sides of the fence in journalism and PR to deliver dynamic, relevant and engaging content, copy and communications that resonates meaningfully with audiences across a variety of sectors.

Key areas of expertise include:

  • Writing and editing
  • Project management
  • Marketing and Public Relations