Early Foundations
First encounters with systems change through grassroots ecotourism and conservation work in the cloudforests of Ecuador. A fairly life altering start.
Hi! I'm Chloe - Welcome to my site!
Researcher, writer, and advisor working across systems change, futures thinking, and long term stewardship
Where I'm coming from
A deep connection to the natural world has always guided my work. What began with studies in environmental science and sustainable development evolved into two decades of work spanning grassroots communities to global policy spaces, bringing together systems inquiry, strategy, and storytelling across cultures, landscapes, and institutions.
Over the years, I’ve lived and worked across continents, from fieldwork in East Africa and Central America to later roles across Southeast Asia and Europe. I’ve slept in tents with wild animals roaming nearby, studied black and white colobus monkeys while quietly channelling my inner Jane Goodall, and spent time alongside local and Indigenous communities witnessing first hand the deep interconnections between ecological and human systems.
Building on these foundations, I’ve worked from grassroots to global policy level with UN agencies, governments, development banks, NGOs, foundations, and mission driven enterprises. Much of this work has focused on helping turn complexity into clearer strategy, stronger narratives, and more thoughtful action across sustainability, biodiversity, governance, and systemic transition, particularly where resilience, stewardship, and long term systems change are becoming increasingly important.
Today, I work across systems change, futures thinking, governance, and long term stewardship, helping leaders, institutions, and capital stewards navigate uncertainty and respond more thoughtfully to systemic transition.
1998-2002
Environmental science and agricultural ecology studies, combined with conservation fieldwork and ecological research in East Africa and Indonesia.
2003-2007
PhD research and fieldwork across Central America exploring environmental governance, sustainable development, and the political dynamics shaping regional sustainability policy and decision-making.
2008-2014
Technical and strategic systems change advisory roles within global institutions working across climate, biodiversity, and international development.
2015-2022
Advisory spanning strategic communications, futures thinking, biodiversity finance, systems change, narrative development, and organisational change.
2023-present
Independent practice integrating systems thinking, futures inquiry, narrative strategy, and long term stewardship across sustainability, philanthropy, organisational transformation, and systemic transition
Early Foundations
First encounters with systems change through grassroots ecotourism and conservation work in the cloudforests of Ecuador. A fairly life altering start.
1998-2002
Environmental science and agricultural ecology studies, combined with conservation fieldwork and ecological research in East Africa and Indonesia.
2003-2007
PhD research and fieldwork across Central America exploring environmental governance, sustainable development, and the politics shaping regional policy.
2008-2014
Technical and strategic systems change advisory roles within global institutions working across climate, biodiversity, and international development.
2015-2022
Advisory spanning strategic communications, futures thinking, biodiversity finance, systems and narrative change, and organisational transition.
2023-present
Independent practice integrating systems thinking, futures inquiry, strategic communications, and long term stewardship across sustainability, philanthropy, and systemic transition.
How I work
Most of my work sits in the messy middle, where certainty has broken down, old maps no longer work, and leaders and institutions are trying to make sense of what is actually going on. Much of this work centres on organisations navigating systemic change across sustainability, governance, biodiversity, finance, philanthropy, and broader societal transition.
My work usually begins by stepping back and reading the wider landscape: noticing patterns, connecting fragmented signals, surfacing assumptions, and helping people build clearer understanding of the systems and pressures shaping the terrain around them. Rather than arriving with predefined solutions, I focus on supporting clearer judgement, strategic orientation, and more thoughtful responses to complexity and uncertainty.
I often collaborate with futures practitioners, systems thinkers, researchers, and philanthropic networks, bringing together systems insight, narrative framing, synthesis, strategic communication, and longer horizon perspective to complex and purpose led work.
What Guides My Work
A few consistent ideas shape how I engage with complexity and change. My perspective has been shaped as much by fieldwork in remote landscapes and time spent alongside local communities as by later work within international institutions, sustainability initiatives, and systems change contexts.
Over time, this has left me more interested in the deeper conditions shaping our systems than in surface level solutions alone. Better economic, political, and social systems matter deeply, but on their own they are not enough. I’m interested in how assumptions, narratives, values, and patterns of behaviour shape the systems we collectively create and sustain.
This means holding together systems and stories, policy and culture, governance and human behaviour, inner and outer change. Much of my work sits in understanding how these layers interact, and how people and institutions navigate transition under conditions of uncertainty and accelerating change.
Futures thinking also plays an important role in this work. Not as prediction, but as a way of widening perspective, questioning assumptions, and helping people prepare more thoughtfully for futures that are unlikely to become simpler anytime soon.
My Philosophy & Stance
My work is grounded in curiosity, care, and integrity.
I’m comfortable working with ambiguity rather than rushing toward certainty, trusting that better questions often matter more than immediate answers.
Years spent working across ecological, institutional, and human systems have taught me that many of the challenges we face are not only technical or systemic, but also cultural, relational, and deeply human.
I’m interested in how the way we lead, govern, communicate, and make sense of the world shapes the futures we create. For me, this means paying attention not only to external systems, but also to the values and assumptions sitting beneath them.
At its core, my work is an ongoing exploration of what responsible stewardship looks like in an age of uncertainty and transition.
Affiliations & Communities
I’m part of a small number of professional and practitioner communities that support reflective practice, ethical futures work, systems thinking, and long term stewardship, including:
Do not lose heart, we were made for these times.
— Clarissa Pinkola Estés (Mexican-American poet and Jungian psychoanalyst)