transition and organizational accompaniment

I work with individuals and organisations navigating periods of transition, overload, and uncertainty – when familiar structures no longer hold, but new directions are not yet clear.  In times of change and crisis, I work across scales, from the individual to the institutional, helping to make sense of complexity rather than adding to it.

Drawing on over 25 years’ experience across the UN system, multilateral institutions, and civil society, I bring a dual focus on transitional literacy and performance sense-making.  This includes the ability to analyze large, fragmented bodies of qualitative and quantitative data – across themes, countries, and time periods – and to use AI-supported methods to surface patterns, shifts, and strategic signals that might otherwise remain obscured by noise.

My work is particularly suited to contexts where:

•  multiple changes are converging

•  strategic clarity is sought in times of uncertainty

•  leadership or teams feel stretched, fragmented, or fatigued

•  values, priorities, or results frameworks require re-articulation

•  resources are limited and decisions carry heightened risk

I combine long-standing expertise in analysis, coordination, planning, performance monitoring, and managing results frameworks with AI-assisted analytical tools to cut through the static: accelerating sense-making, identifying trajectories and gaps, and supporting policy and strategic decisions under pressure.  This uses AI as an aid to synthesis and learning, not a substitute for judgement, accountability, or human oversight.

My approach integrates analytical synthesis, facilitation, and careful listening.  I provide accompaniment rather than prescription – helping organizations and individuals see more clearly, name what may be ending, and identify what is emerging, while grounding reflection in evidence and lived experience.

Forms of engagement include:

•  analytical reviews of performance data and reporting

•  facilitated sense-making and strategy sessions

•  reflective conversations with leaders or teams

•  light-touch observation of meetings or processes

•  short written decision-support or learning notes

•  interim accompaniment during periods of transition

My experience spans development, education, environment, health, humanitarian action, migration, and governance.  It includes working extensively for NGOs small and large, and over two decades working with six UN organizations within the Joint UN Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) – supporting strategy cycles, performance assessment, leadership processes, and organizational change.

Alongside this work, I founded and chair Plenna, a Geneva-based association focused on individual preparedness and reflection around dying and death.  I am also the author of the forthcoming book The Punctuation of Loss, which explores personal and collective transition.  Along similar lines, I am also setting up an international information platform (and potential network), provisionally Quaker Understandings on Aging, Loss and Death, which may have resonance for other faith groups and beyond.

My style is rigorous yet human: grounded, reflective, and attentive to culture, power, and process. I work with integrity, discretion, and humour, and am available for short- or longer-term engagements in Brussels and internationally.

See David's LinkedIn profile and SHORT CV

Contact David