Work

Building and leading communities and ecosystems

I have spent over 15 years designing experiences, building organisations and leading teams that bring people together around shared goals — from grassroots movements and digital communities to innovation ecosystems and enterprise-scale programmes.

I specialise in understanding how people, organisations and networks connect around a shared purpose, and how to design the structures, partnerships and experiences that help those ecosystems thrive.

I co-founded Code Club, growing it into a global community of over 13,000 volunteers teaching 180,000 children a week to code in after-school clubs across 160 countries. In 2015, I received an MBE for services to technology education.

At the Raspberry Pi Foundation, I grew the breadth and depth of the global community through innovative partnerships, a prolific volunteer-led localisation scheme and new digital learning tools.

I co-founded She Wins a community of women learning to negotiate successfully and authentically, with clients including Deloitte, Spotify and Sky.

At Multiverse, I built and led a team of more than 25 community practitioners while the apprentice community grew from 1,000 to 10,000 people in two years. We increased active engagement from 30% to 51%, making the community an integral part of the apprentice experience.

At Innovate Cambridge, I created The Glasshouse — a physical space designed to bring together founders, investors, researchers, corporates and ecosystem leaders to build relationships, exchange ideas and create new opportunities for collaboration.

I also created CambridgeInnovationEcosystem.com — a digital platform designed to connect the people, organisations and resources that help Cambridge’s innovation ecosystem thrive.

In addition to my consultancy work, I am an active angel investor focused on community-driven companies. I mentor the talented founders at Zinc VC, hold a NED role at Unibeez, and create Bunch Podcast.

See LinkedIn for a full career history.

Clients say…

  • "I couldn't recommend Clare more highly when it comes to anything community-related. She helped us with our community strategy at Ezra and did a fantastic job. I am confident that any organization would benefit greatly from having her on their team!"

    Emi Gal - Founder + CEO at Ezra

  • "Clare developed an alumni strategy and outlined an implementation plan for us. Working with her was a smooth, enjoyable experience. She was wonderfully curious about our charity, responsive to my feedback and provided us with a detailed plan full of innovative ideas. I have been really pleased with the outcome of her work and now feel highly enthusiastic about what we can achieve.

    Christine Kinnear - CEO With Insight Eduction

  • “Clare spoke to a group of Amazonians about how to build community across a number of different use cases, from internal employee engagement to customer and stakeholder participation. She brought a range of excellent examples, supplied practical actions as well as covering broader theory around best practice. Key takeaways included differentiating between when you need an audience and when you need a community, how to set up clear expectations on the give and get for community members, and how to empower communities to succeed. Great feedback from all attendees on the session."

    Eugenie Teasley - Head of Impact at Amazon

  • "I worked with Clare to get some clarity, strategy and advice around a growing community that I work on for a client. Clare listened to what we were trying to achieve, got straight to the core of our issues and suggested actionable tips and ideas that we have since worked on implementing, including an onboarding sequence that's really helped us with our initial engagement for new community members. Thank you Clare!"

    Laura Winton - Community + Marketing Lead