Consultancy at specialist sustainability agency Glasshouse

Appointed by the CEO of Lexis Group and reporting into to the COO,  the original goal of the role was to mentor the existing Director of Glasshouse, and help create a business strategy and unique positioning for the agency. However, on appointment the brief changed to adopting the role of interim Head of Glasshouse as the existing Director left the organisation.

The Challenge

Glasshouse had evolved into a very specialist agency with a stable of clients who were all operating in the sustainable agriculture sector. The previous Director had won a roster of clients, and although he had a team of six to support him, there was little or no direct exposure with the clients for this team, increasing the challenge when he moved on.

Key Achievements

I took over all senior consultancy work on stable mainly of clients in the agriculture, sustainable development, NGO and food sectors with smooth transition from existing director. I won trust of all senior client contacts, restructured the team, delivered on huge backlog of project work retaining all clients during my tenure;I was involved instrumentally in a number of key programmes including:

 

  • Creating sustainability strategy, messaging, scripting and concept for full suite of videos, CSR website and accompanying annual Sustainability Report for a global agri-business
  • Securing a retainer and created first-ever global communications plan for the world’s largest agricultural research group. Travelled to Montpellier to deliver messaging workshop to 30 Communication heads of Research programs and sub groups;
  • Conceived and created new website and stakeholder relations plan for another sustainable agriculture client
  • Glasshouse was also called on to provide specialist sustainability consultancy on parent company Lexis’ corporate clients Whitbread Plc (Costa & Premier Inn), DHL and retailers’ rainforest loyalty programme Green Squares where I inputted.
  • I also led the search for, and successfully hired my successor in the role of Director of the consultancy