Since establishing my company in 2014, I have undertaken consultancy projects for a wide range of clients. Among others, these have included Alzheimer’s Society, Homeless Link, Dementia UK, CHEM Trust, HEAL, Sands, the Motor Neurone Disease Association, the Richmond Group of Charities, the Institute of Legacy Management, the Faculty of Sexual and Reproductive Healthcare, Women in Sport; Prostate Cancer UK, the Patients Association, the Migraine Trust, Living Streets, the Lullaby Trust, and the Blue Ribbon Foundation. A selection of testimonials from my past clients are included below.
Testimonials
Jennifer Keen, Head of Policy, Alzheimer’s Society: “Drew worked with us for several months during quite a pivotal time for our policy team. He was very flexible and did a real range of things for us: drafting a policy development strategy, providing coaching and development support, overseeing work on our policy position library, and he even facilitated some of our away days. Being able to call on his wide range of policy and influencing expertise was hugely helpful to the whole team. He was a great sounding board and he helped to get everyone thinking differently about our work and our impact. Highly personable and professional, Drew has been a real pleasure to work with and we all benefited from his smart insights.”
George Parish-Wallace, Policy Officer, Alzheimer’s Society: “I have been working with Drew who has provided specialist training tailored to my specific needs. The sessions Drew delivered were tailored to my personal development needs, and Drew’s personable, attentive approach to training has been very valuable in developing my key skills in various areas, including presenting, written briefings, communications and providing concise summaries to senior colleagues on detailed policy activity. I was also provided with a variety of detailed resources following each session for future reference which I can use for key tasks going forwards. Drew is a wonderful consultant to collaborate with and I would certainly recommend him to any organisation looking for a policy expert with experience and expertise to suit your individual needs.”
Miriam Deakin, Director of Policy and Strategy, NHS Providers: “We worked with Drew in NHS Providers to offer a workshop on influencing for our 35 strong policy, analysis and public affairs team in response to a common theme emerging in appraisal rounds around support to develop effective influencing plans. Drew also captured the range of helpful tools and techniques he shared in a handy workbook which we have joint branded for internal use.
Drew has an accessible, open and supportive style which is great for developing others and putting people at ease. Drew is also very willing to draw on his own considerable experience of campaigning and influencing across a range of topics. Drew was reliable and produced exactly what we agreed to quality and time!
It was great to work with you Drew, thank you – I would recommend Drew’s support in a training and development context with policy/comms/public affairs professionals, particularly helping people think through thorny influencing challenges, and building confidence among less experienced members of a team. Thanks again for your help!”
Antoinette Sandbach, former Member of Parliament for Eddisbury: “It has been a pleasure to work with Drew in his role as the Secretariat to the APPG on Baby Loss. I have found him to be highly organised, efficient, enthusiastic and hard-working with a detailed knowledge of parliamentary work and procedures and good political awareness and insight. Drew has been highly effective in stakeholder management and is also an excellent strategist and communicator, both written and verbal. And all of this always delivered with a positive and friendly approach. I have no hesitation at all in recommending Drew and his consultancy services to other organisations to help them develop their campaigning and impact.”
Dr Clea Harmer, CEO, Sands: “Drew has been a real pleasure to work with – focused and committed with a real ability to identify key issues and articulate these clearly; he also has an experience and knowledge of public affairs that have proved invaluable. His hard work and enthusiasm have helped us to make significant progress on the projects that he has helped us with, and his cheerful and helpful approach have ensured stakeholder and colleague buy-in at every step. I have really enjoyed working with someone who is so positive and friendly and I really look forward to working with him again.”
Susie Rabin, Head of Policy & Campaigns, the Motor Neurone Disease Association: “Drew has been a big asset to helping us develop our upcoming campaign. His constructive and honest approach and excellent chairing skills has enable us to work through some challenging issues as a team. I’d really recommend working with him, he is extremely personable and easy to work with.”
Ed Link, Regional Trustee for Scotland, U3A - University of the Third Age: “Working with Zoe and Drew helpfed us gather our brand identify ideas into a coherent expression of what we wanted, why we wanted it, and what we needed to do to achieve it. Getting a clear idea of these basics cleared away the clutter.” (as part of a joint project with Zoe Amar Digital)
Francine Bates, CEO, The Lullaby Trust: “AS CEO of The Lullaby Trust, I appointed Drew to help the baby loss charity sector set up a new All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Baby Loss. Following the 2015 General Election, we had identified a number of MPs and Peers who were keen to set up a new APPG to highlight and prevent baby loss and improve bereavement support to families. Drew is a highly experienced public and parliamentary affairs professional and very quickly established the trust of key MPs and Peers. He guided the process from the beginning and working with baby charities planned a series of meetings and activities that has ensured that the APPG has made a significant impact in Parliament. Drew arranged all meetings, secured speakers and developed an annual programme. As part of this, Drew worked with my team to organise several parliamentary events during Baby Loss Awareness Week in 2016 and 2017 including a reception in Speaker's House. As well as providing the secretariat of the APPG, Drew has crucially helped us to frame our key policy goals to present to Ministers.
Aside from his organisational skills, knowledge of parliamentary procedure, campaigning and policy development; Drew is an excellent communicator both in terms of written and verbal communication. He is both a planner and a strategist and this has undoubtedly led to the APPG and the issue of baby loss being now very firmly on a cross party agenda.
Drew is very personable and a huge pleasure to work with. He is always clear about his role as a consultant and meets his key deliverables within budget and on time. I would have absolutely no hesitation in recommending Drew's consultancy services to other organisations to help them develop and implement an effective public affairs and campaigning strategy ."
Chris Millward, Chief Executive, the Institute of Legacy Management:"Drew led the Institute of Legacy Management's Taskforce to establish Good Practice Guidance for legacy administration. He brought great value to the project through his understanding of the external policy environment and quickly got under the skin of our sector and the sensitivities of the project to be able to make valuable recommendations. Drew was passionate, driven and always went above and beyond what was expected of him to ensure he delivered the best possible outcomes. An intelligent and thoughtful person whom I'm delighted to be able to recommend and look forward to collaborate with again in the future."
Kate Mulley, Director of Research, Education and Policy at Sands: "Working with Drew to develop Sands public affairs function has been an amazing experience. Not only is Drew incredibly constructive and easy to work with, he has also managed to transform our approach over a very short period of time. Drew’s skills span from strategy development, to stakeholder management and across to developing templates, briefings and toolkits. Working together has been a pleasure with Drew frequently delivering above and beyond what was expected and always with calm, good humour. I cannot recommend him highly enough.”
Sarah Williams, Campaigns Manager, Living Streets:"I had the pleasure of having a great working relationship with Drew at Parkinson’s UK so I was happy to recommend him as a consultant when I needed to develop ideas for our devolved election campaign at Living Streets. Drew did a great job of understanding the organisation and getting different people’s points of view. He delivered a very comprehensive report which covered different options and angles and had clear recommendations. To follow the report he delivered a workshop, which used helpful techniques that were new – even to a group of long standing campaigners!"
Wendy Thomas, Chief Executive, The Migraine Trust: “The Migraine Trust has been working with Drew Lindon for over a year now. We were keen to work with him as he demonstrated that he had the skills that we needed to bring in to our charity. In particular his policy knowledge, campaigns planning and public affairs awareness were exactly what we required. He is a pleasure to work with as he is a good listener and asks the right questions. He has an open, constructive approach that has been much appreciated by the staff here. I do not hesitate in recommending him highly to both peers and other organisations.”
Charlotte Augst, Partnership Director, The Richmond Group of Charities: “We worked with Drew in the run up to the launch of a report. As you can imagine, when working through a coalition, there was a fair amount of backwards and forwards, which Drew handled with pragmatism and resilience. Once we had finally decided on a plan of action, Drew wrote an accessible summary of a complicated research paper and then planned and delivered a very successful event, taking care of all aspects of the launch.”
Jonathan Prince MBE, Chair, the Blue Ribbon Foundation: “Drew provided consultancy support to the Blue Ribbon Foundation, helping to develop our web and social media presence. I had a great working relationship with Drew; he has an honest, friendly but business-like approach which does him credit. He applied a thoughtful and constructive approach to all the work we did together, whether it was blogging, social media, news story writing, applying policy knowledge, and so on. I'd recommend him to any other charity looking to make a impact!”
Bethany Eckley, Director of Research and Policy, Church Urban Fund: “It has been fantastic having coaching sessions with Drew. I found all of our sessions very useful and really appreciated the opportunity to take time out of work and reflect on bigger issues. We discussed various topics including project management, line management, leadership styles and strategy development. Drew was very flexible in his approach. He offered topics for discussion, but was also happy for me to come along and reflect on issues or questions that had arisen at work that week. This ensured that the sessions were always extremely relevant and helpful. Having these coaching sessions has given me a fresh look at my work and helped me to overcome particular challenges. I would definitely recommend it!”
Hannah Winter, Head of Policy and Programmes, Roald Dahl's Marvellous Children's Charity: “I worked with Drew when he was Head of Policy and Campaigns at Prostate Cancer UK. Drew was a fantastic, personable colleague and a diligent team leader. I learnt a great deal from Drew’s policy, campaigns and public affairs expertise while he was at the charity, owing to his open and constructive approach. As a service of his consultancy I have also benefited from bespoke professional development coaching from Drew. Drew’s extensive third sector background in policy, campaigns and public affairs, coupled with his senior management experience, has been of immense value to my professional development needs. I would highly recommend working with Drew.”