Blog

Notes & writing.

Thinking on customer experience, proposition and product strategy, and what it takes to build things people trust, come back to, and recommend, drawn from work across financial services and women's health.

Women's health · 2024

We need to talk about periods at work

The silence around menstruation costs women their health, careers and financial futures, and the UK economy around £11 billion a year.

Read →
Pensions · 2024

Should your pension hold Bitcoin? What the UK's first allocation actually tells us

What the UK's first pension allocation to bitcoin says about the investment case, fiduciary duty, and trustee engagement with new asset classes.

Read →
Financial inclusion · 2024

The FCA's financial inclusion remit: why the words matter

Why the distinction between financial inclusion, vulnerability, wellness and education is not pedantic, but central to getting policy and design right.

Read →
ESG · 2024

The S in ESG finally gets serious: what TISFD means for business

A new global framework aims to turn social impact from a qualitative footnote into a quantifiable, material financial risk. Why that matters.

Read →
Women's health · 2024

The circular connection: why women's health is a financial inclusion issue

Bodies and bank accounts are connected. Why closing the women's health gap is a $1 trillion opportunity, and a route to closing the financial gap too.

Read →
Sustainable finance · 2024

Growth at all costs is not prosperity: reflections from Ethical Finance Global

GDP is a poor proxy for prosperity. Reflections from Ethical Finance Global 2024 on the ecological stakes and what finance is actually for.

Read →
Community · 2024

What happens when 300 women walk into a room

A day at egg, Scotland's largest platform for women, and why community infrastructure and honest introductions matter more than they seem.

Read →
Financial inclusion · 2024

Why young social entrepreneurs are the missing link in financial inclusion

Large institutions set the frame, but the best financial inclusion solutions are built from lived experience by the people closest to the problem.

Read →
Innovation · 2024

Africa Tech Summit: what innovation looks like when the stakes are real

Founders designing from the constraint, not the ideal, and what fintech, stablecoins and connectivity in Africa teach about real customer-centricity.

Read →
Digital inclusion · 2024

What your old laptop could do instead of gathering dust

Donating old tech through the National Device Bank is good for the planet, good for people, and a stronger business case than most organisations realise.

Read →
Gender pension gap · 2023

Closing the gender pension gap will take more than good intentions

The gap is structural and deep. Why closing it needs commercial innovation and policy change together, not good intentions alone.

Read →
Inclusive design · 2023

Inclusive design is not a compliance exercise. It is a design philosophy.

Genuine accessibility starts with lived experience and design culture, not an audit checklist, and in financial services that matters more than most.

Read →
Digital inclusion · 2023

Why digital inclusion will only be solved through genuine cross-sector collaboration

No single organisation or department will fix digital exclusion. It needs sustained collaboration across government, civil society and the private sector.

Read →
Financial education · 2022

Financial education isn't a nice-to-have, it's a business imperative

Why investing in the financial literacy of colleagues and customers alike is a business imperative for financial services, not a box to tick.

Read →
Digital inclusion · 2022

Why financial services has a role to play in getting the UK online

Financial services helped drive the shift to digital. That comes with a responsibility to bring people with it, not leave them behind.

Read →
Digital inclusion · 2022

Building a digital skills hub: meeting people where they are

Building a free digital skills resource taught us that content is the easy part. Reaching the people who need it is the real work.

Read →
Sustainable finance · 2022

Your money is doing something. The question is whether you know what.

On sustainable finance, consumer values, and the gap between what people want their money to do and what it actually does.

Read →
Financial services · 2021

Why fintech and financial services need each other (more than either will admit)

Looking back at a 2021 fintech innovation forum, and why corporate–fintech collaboration only changes customer outcomes when the customer stays at the centre.

Read →