It’s been almost two years since I moved from working within charities to consulting with them. It’s been fun, mostly. I’ve really enjoyed the variety of charities I’ve worked with and the range of challenges they’ve faced.

A recurring theme in many of the projects I’ve worked on has been the importance of leadership. I’ve worked with charities of all sizes in contexts as various as the UK, Ireland, Greece, Nigeria and Georgia and in all of them, the role that inspirational and effective leaders play has been critical. I am very proud of the strategies I have developed for my consulting clients but no strategy can be successful without the right leadership.

So when my friend and longstanding collaborator, Imogen Ward was talking to me about her future plans, the idea of doing something together on leadership seemed a logical step. For the past three years, Imogen has been running Lessons for Life the charity supported by the world’s largest international cable company, Liberty Global. Imogen has been travelling the globe working with senior executives and their billionaire board members and has successfully persuaded them to care about and invest in kids’ education in Africa. Which has also been fun but it’s time for her to set up something herself.

And that’s how we came up with Aldrich & Ward Leadership*. We’re setting up a boutique consulting and search practice focusing on helping charities and social businesses develop and implement the strategies with the best possible people that will ensure success. We believe that by offering a strategic approach to leadership development we can provide nonprofits with a complete solution to their needs from overall strategy to staff recruitment, delivered by real experts.

I’m subsuming my existing consulting practice into the new venture.

We’ve just started Aldrich & Ward but already we seem to have plenty of work with a real mixture of organisations from the largest international NGOs, big brand name domestic charities and more niche causes as well. We can probably fit a couple more in though…

I’m continuing my other ventures, Audience Fundraising & Communications which provides a full direct marketing agency  service to small and medium sized charities. And of course I’m still  working with the Misfit crew and their foundation developing technologies and approaches to link donors to the work they are supporting. Oh and I’ve agreed to teach a module for a term for Chichester University’s  undergraduate degree in fundraising, the first in the UK.

Well, I’ll be busy for sure…

*yes I know, what a stroke of genius that name is