I'm an academic, writer, sometime bureaucrat, CEO and social entrepreneur, curious about how the world works and how to improve it, and now a Professor at University College London.  I work to create, spot and implement good ideas, mixing practical action with longer-term strategy and imagination, and collaborating with national governments, global organisations, NGOs, foundations and businesses. 

My latest books are 'Another World is Possible' on reviving social and political imagination, which came out in 2022, 'Prophets at a tangent: how art shapes social imagination', published early 2023, and 'When Science Meets Power' published winter 2023/24.

Over the years I've worked in civil society, government, business and academia; overseen investment funds and chaired companies and charities; had jobs ranging from cleaning homes to selling door to door; and hopefully gained a good perspective on how the world works and how it can be changed for the better.   Most of my career has been devoted to developing ideas, methods and practical solutions that can help the world handle its newfound complexity and interconnectedness – mobilising knowledge and collective intelligence; prioritising strategy and long-termism; tackling social and ecological harms, and combatting powerful contrary forces and tendencies that make us meaner, stupider, more violent and more blinkered than we need to be.

This website brings together writings, ideas, videos and other materials. The blogs section is where I float new ideas and share ongoing work. I hope you find the site interesting and useful.   An intro to my books can be found here.