Hello and welcome back to the Impact Consulting Podcast, where we have another interview for you today. And what an interview it is. I'm joined by the unsinkable force that is Leisa Perch.

About Leisa

Leisa is the CEO of a woman-led consultancy company based in Barbados, SAEDI Consulting (which is "ideas" backwards!).

Leisa is a gender and environment specialist, with more than 20 years of experience in the development field. Her work as a consultant is global, although her more recent projects focused on the Caribbean. Previous projects include conducting studies on gender in fisheries and developing the Gender Equality Mainstreaming Policy for the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS).

Leisa regularly carries out research or gender assessments and advises development actors including United Nations (UN) agencies such as UN Women and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). She is also the host of the Women’s Leadership in the Environment Webinar series and the host of a new SAEDI podcast.

What we talk about

At the IC-Hub, we talk a lot about how experienced independent social impact professionals can "level-up" their consulting businesses through a range of strategies, such as building a following, getting your voice out there, joining expert committees, and outsourcing work to others. Leisa has done all of this and more!

It was fascinating to hear how she's put into practice a lot of the principles that we preach and also particularly inspiring to hear why and how she left her glittering and prestigious international civil servant life to build a consulting practice on her own terms.

I don't want to delay you listening to this insightful interview any longer, so without further ado, please sit back and enjoy the show. And do leave a review if you're listening to this on Apple Podcasts.

Useful links

Hello and welcome to the Impact Consulting Podcast - a podcast that helps people launch and accelerate their independent consulting businesses in the international development and social impact fields.

Today, Joumana Brihi shares her remark-able (pun intended) impact consulting journey (you'll get that pun in a moment).

About Joumana

Joumana has 18 years of experience in strategic communications and market research. She is also the founder of Remark, a network of consultants and experts providing market intelligence, labour market and economic studies, and strategic communication services to public and private sector clients.

As a strategic communication expert, she develops external and internal communication strategies that support creating awareness about organisations, initiatives or projects; repositioning them or launching new ones.

Based in Beirut, Joumana is currently the Team Leader and Strategic Communication Expert for the European Commission’s regional communication programme: EU Neighbours South, in which she leads and manages a multidisciplinary international team to provide targeted strategic advice to EU Delegations.

What we talk about

Incredibly, Joumana has worked as an independent professional across her entire career and has done a fantastic job to grow and develop - professionally and personally - on her own terms. In our conversation, Joumana tells us:

We'd like to thank Joumana for coming on the show and thank you for tuning in.

Useful links

Hello and welcome to another episode of the Impact Consulting Podcast, a show all about how to become and improve as an independent consultant in the international development and social impact spaces.

Today, I'm delighted to be joined by an absolute IC-Hub superstar, Hattie Gibson, an independent researcher and Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning (MEL) consultant.

About Hattie

One of the first participants of our inaugural premium Levelling Up Workshop, Hattie has been an independent consultant for the past three years, after implementing and managing projects in the international development and humanitarian fields for 11 years.

Harriet now provides specialised research or MEL services from her Lisbon base. She has a background in human rights and fragile and conflict affected states, focussing on the Middle East and North Africa region where she previously worked and lived.

Hattie has worked for a variety of organisations from grassroots NGOs in Palestine, to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency in Lebanon to global private sector consultancies, to various INGOs and Foundations. She recently switched gears and began to devote half her time to programmes related to climate change and environmental impact.

What we talk about

Hattie shares the wonderful story about how she became an independent social impact professional, including:

Useful links

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Hello and welcome to a special episode of the Impact Consulting Podcast, with Loksan and Molly from the Impact Consulting Hub.

Today, we walk you through the steps required to launch an independent consulting business in the international development or social impact spaces.

What we discuss

The IC-Hub 5-Step Start-up Framework

We go through the five steps quite briefly. For those who are serious about launching their independent consulting career very soon, we also provide a premium IC-Hub Start-up Incubator Programme. 

Useful links

How do you "level up" your independent social impact consulting business... And what does that even mean?

In this week's episode of the Impact Consulting Podcast, we give a brief update on what we've been up to recently and talk through some common challenges that independent social impact professionals face after a few years in the business, as well as how to push past these plateaus and get to the next level.

The goal here is to enable you to position yourself as the go-to expert in your field, as a way to achieve more impact, more income and cultivate more influence in your field of work.

This episode gives an overview of what we discuss in our first-ever IC-Hub premium workshop on consulting levelling up strategies. Needless to say, in the workshop we go far more in-depth into the specifics and apply the principles and strategies to IC-Hubbers' consulting businesses.

You can visit our website to find details about the levelling up workshop and other IC-Hub premium workshops.

Thank you for listening and we hope you enjoy the show!

Useful links

Hello and welcome to another episode of the Impact Consulting Podcast, a podcast that aims to help people become and improve as independent consultants in the social impact and international development fields.

Today, I’m delighted to be joined by Geoff Hucker, Founder and CEO of Work For Impact, which is a new platform designed to help nonprofits and “For Purpose” organisations engage top on-demand talent, meet the demands of the changing landscape of ‘work,’ implement agile working practices, and become leaders in the socially responsible freelance space.

Based in Hong Kong, Geoff has over 18 years of experience as a social entrepreneur and has directed and scaled a successful charity – Beyond The Orphanage. Geoff has also hired and worked with freelancers from around the world.

One of our missions at the Impact Consulting Hub is to improve how independent work in the social impact space is structured, and, ultimately, to help us all deliver greater impact for our clients. I was therefore really excited for the launch of Work for Impact, which promises to do just that.

So in today's interview we discuss:

As always, thank you so much for listening. And if you’ve enjoyed this episode, please feel free to share it, leave a review on iTunes, or get in touch at impactconsultinghub.com. Without further ado, please sit back and enjoy the show.

Useful links

Hello and welcome to the Impact Consulting Podcast, powered by the IC-Hub, a growing global community of support for independent social impact professionals.

We've got a great show for you today, featuring Joanne Irvine who is not actually a consultant.

So, why have we got a non-consultant on the Impact Consulting Podcast?

Well, Joanne is a Programme Manager at the International Organization for Migration (IOM) - the United Nations (UN) migration agency. She works with consultants all the time, so she was the ideal person to provide the "client's" perspective on UN consulting.

About Joanne

Joanne Irvine specialises in migration governance and sustainable development in the Migration and Sustainable Development Unit of IOM's Headquarters. Joanne has over 12 years of experience working with and supporting local and national governments, civil society and UN organisations globally to maximise the development potential of migration in support of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

Joanne holds a joint undergraduate and Master of Arts in Hispanic Studies and French from the University of Glasgow, an MA in European Policy and International Development Cooperation from the Autonomous University of Barcelona, a master in Migration, Co-Development and Public Participation from the Cultural and Social Studies Foundation of Valencia and a diploma in Human Rights and Forced Migration from the United Nations University of Peace.

UN consulting from the "client" perspective

UN agencies like IOM implement a lot of their work through consultants. And, as a disclaimer, they happen to be one of my most important clients. So I relished this opportunity to squeeze Joanne for all the insights I could get about her experiences hiring consultants, including:

We close with me asking Joanne whether she'd consider consulting and what concerns she would have about an eventual consulting career.

Really enjoyed recording this one and truly thankful for the way Joanne provides such practical and balanced insights about consultant-client dynamics.

Thank you for tuning in and feel free to reach out to us at impactconsultinghub.com if you’re interested in starting or accelerating your independent consulting career.

And if you’ve been enjoying this podcast, please leave a review on iTunes or share the episode with a friend.

Useful links

Welcome to another episode of the Impact Consulting Podcast, hosted by the IC-Hub - a growing online community of support for independent social impact professionals.

Today, we've got my good friend, Emmerentia Erasmus, on the show to talk us through her impact consulting journey.

About Emmerentia

Emmerentia is an independent migration specialist with more than ten years of experience, including in building the capacity of states and regional organisations in managing migration. Based in Cape Town, she has extensive experience in migration policy and programme development, with specific expertise on labour migration and the free movement of persons. Her work comprises research design; baseline and needs assessments to inform project development and implementation; analytical reports for publication; providing technical assistance to regional migration dialogue and governance processes, including by developing regional action plans, strategies and migration policy frameworks; and managing migration programmes in the field.

Prior to going independent around five years ago, Emmerentia worked as a project manager for the International Organization for Migration (IOM), the International Centre for Migration Policy Development (ICMPD), among other organisations.

Key discussion points

I really enjoyed learning more about Emmerentia's consulting journey in this episode. Some of the key points we discuss are:

Thank you so much for tuning in and we hope you enjoy the show.

If you’re interested in learning from consultants like Emmerentia, then feel free to connect with her on LinkedIn (link below) or join us at the IC-Hub.

Useful links:

Hello and welcome to the Impact Consulting Podcast, powered by the IC-Hub. This is a show where we share advice, learnings, and stories from our global network of independent social impact professionals.

We’ve got a great show for you today. We have our good friend, Dr. Aida Ibričević, on the show to talk about her impact consulting journey in which she leveraged her time in academia to build an independent consulting practice.

Aida is an independent social science researcher and consultant based in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, affiliated as a Global Fellow with the Migration Center at the Peace Research Institute (PRIO) in Oslo, Norway and as a Research Fellow with the Center for Diaspora Studies, Sarajevo School of Science and Technology.

She is currently working on migration-related consultancy and academic projects for the Bonn International Center for Conversion project (migrant reintegration), the International Organization for Migration (labour migration), and the United Nations Development Programme’s (diaspora engagement). She also provides review services for a number of peer-reviewed, international academic journals.

As for her academic background, Aida has a Bachelor of Arts in Economics from Middlebury College, United States, and an Economics Master of Arts from Central European University (CEU), Hungary. Her doctoral degree is in Political Science from Istanbul Bilgi University, Turkey.

I really enjoyed learning about Aida’s consulting journey coming from academia, which can be a great background from which to launch a consulting career. So we get Aida’s take on:

Thank you for tuning in to the podcast. Please do feel free to reach out to us at impactconsultinghub.com if you’re interested in starting or accelerating your independent development consulting career.

And if you’ve been enjoying this podcast, please leave a review on iTunes or share the episode with a friend.

Useful links

Hello IC-Hubbers and welcome to another episode of the Impact Consulting Podcast, with us, Loksan and Molly.

We've got a special episode today where we go over your and our biggest concerns about becoming freelance consultants in the social impact and international development spaces.

We talk about our journeys and how we addressed the concerns that we had, as well as discussing other common concerns, including those expressed by IC-Hubbers via the Facebook, Google, and Instagram channels.

Top freelancing concerns

We hope you find it useful to hear about how we've gone through these issues and how we've tried to address them!

Listening on the go?

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https://www.impactconsultinghub.com/