About Clare
A Curious Life
I spent over twenty years helping organisations understand people, change and emerging opportunities — across consumer insight, research, strategy, innovation, foresight and behavioural science.
I started out as a qualitative researcher at Ninth Seat, running studies across many countries for brands like Unilever, Coca-Cola, GSK and Nestlé. Then I moved in-house and led insight teams at Nestlé, McDonald's, New Look, Sainsbury's and William Grant & Sons. Along the way I launched McChat, a customer community at McDonald's that's still running, and led Sainsbury's Living Well Index on what makes the nation live well. Those years made me a strategic thinker and a solid marketer, as well as a researcher.
Over time I got more interested in what comes next. At William Grant I ran our "New Normal" futures and scenario work, and at Unilever I worked on sustainability innovation, including running an innovation incubator.
The work I love most is imagining a future that works for people, then working back to figure out how to get there. It's part imagination, part rolling up your sleeves and planning. I use the same approach with people, in business and project coaching, and in my Curiosity Experiment course, which helps people work out what they want and how to get there.
Why curiosity
The thing that made all of that work was curiosity, so I went and studied it. I have a master's in applied positive psychology and coaching, specialising in curiosity, and I've researched flow and wellbeing at work at the University of East London.
I'm now a Fellow of the Global Curiosity Institute, where I'm particularly interested in curiosity inside organisations and how you can measure it. I set up The Curiosity Experiment to bring those two sides together: serious insight and futures work, and the practical science of helping people and teams become more curious.
How I work
I love rallying a team and getting people energised, and I'm always trying something new. I work in agile, test-and-learn ways, so we get moving quickly and learn as we go.
I'll do the research, and I'll also get your team doing some of it with me, because the aim is a culture where people keep learning and experimenting after I've gone. People I've worked with say I leave things better than I found them. It's what I try to do with every person, place and project.
Outside work
I teach yoga, volunteer as a facilitator with Action for Happiness, and I'm happiest by the sea.
Nature, wellbeing and how we live well together shape the work I choose, which is why I'm especially drawn to sustainability, wellbeing and positive change.
Background
- 20+ years in insight, foresight and innovation (for organisations like Unilever, Nestle, Sainsbury's, WGS, Ninth Seat)
- Postgraduate study in applied positive psychology and coaching (UEL), degree in Management Studies (University of Nottingham)
- Behavioural science, psychology and applied curiosity research (UEL and UWS)
- Fellow of the Global Curiosity Institute https://www.globalcuriosityinstitute.com/
- Yoga and meditation teacher
- Volunteer with Action For Happiness
What I believe
- Curiosity is a discipline, not a mood.
- The best questions often arrive before the best answers.
- Organisations become more innovative when they make it safer to not know yet.
- An overemphasis on efficiency diminishes curiosity.
- Ancient approaches to attention and imagination have plenty to teach modern work.
- Octopuses really are remarkably curious creatures.