Diane is a leading deliberative dialogue and engagement specialist, working with organisations to deliver, support and encourage professional, ethical and practical approaches to involving stakeholders and publics in policy and service development and delivery. With a varied career spanning 30 years her clients have included public, commercial and third sector organisations ranging from most central government departments and many local authorities and health trusts, The RSA, National Grid, Arts Council England, JISC, Arcadis Consulting, the Royal Society and the NSPCC, and international clients in Turkey, Poland, South Africa and Romania. Her previous full time role was as Chief Executive of Dialogue by Design and director at OPM.
Diane brings a broad range of theoretical and practical expertise to her work. She has developed innovative approaches to engaging stakeholders and the public in complex issues; advised on the design and running of formal public consultations under the Planning Act 2008; conducted evaluations of engagement and designed and run multi-method research, engagement and consultation projects across a range of sectors. She has led many collaborative projects, bringing together stakeholders, public, policy-makers and practitioners, enabling different parts of a system to learn from each other, share ideas and reach mutually acceptable solutions to shared problems.
Diane specialises in projects with complex technical, social or ethical dimensions, particularly in science and technology. Her background in philosophy enables her to grasp complex intellectual subjects and she has learned from her experience of teaching adults and of dialogue how to communicate these effectively to wide audiences and how to support people to build confidence to have discussions on topics that they might otherwise see as “too difficult”.
Diane has worked nationally and internationally, with a wide range of different people, including policy makers, academics, scientists, business leaders, teachers and healthcare professionals. Where projects have impacts on specific groups of people, she has ensured they are engaged in ways which enable them to contribute effectively. Her projects have involved homeless people, disabled people, children and young people, drug users, terminally ill patients and many others whose views on the decisions that impact on their lives are often not sought.
Diane has worked with clients to support the development of engagement strategies for organisations ranging from water companies to primary care trusts to the Turkish government, as part of a project funded by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. This work has included advising on approaches to stakeholder mapping and analysis, process design, facilitation and internal capacity building.
Call for a chat
Educational qualifications
PhD Philosophy (funded by British Academy)
MA in Continental Philosophy, Distinction (funded by British Academy)
BA in Philosophy, first class honours
Currently working on an MSc in History and Philosophy of Science
Continuing professional development
Institute of Directors: Role of the Director and the Board
International Association of Public Participation 5-day practitioner course
ILM course on organisational development
Outcomes based commissioning 5-day training as part of the Commissioning Support Programme
Deliberate Thinking 