6heads is an experiment in shared learning. It is a collective dedicated to championing innovation towards sustainability. The group was founded in 2011 by 6 MSc students from Imperial College.

6heads have been described as follows:
“Bringing sustainability to life” – Carmel McQuaid, M&S
“Communicating complex issues simply” – Mike Paul, Paul&Mount
“Quirky and intelligent” – John Elkington, Volans
“Shaking things up” – Wolfgang Weinmann, Café Direct

6heads inspires change through connection and community. 

To get involved, please contact: info@6-heads.com, scan the events page or sign-up to our regular blog http://eepurl.com/GiC4L.

 

 

6heads

Louisa

Connector, community builder, solution finder, creative thinker, facilitator, storyteller and catalyst. Louisa is dedicated to finding beautifully creative and disruptive ways to drive innovation and sustainability and unlock the potential individuals have to do so. She is part of Grant Thornton’s Public Affairs, Policy and Insight team – focusing on accelerating purposeful business, impact investing and non financial reporting. She is also on the creative team for the Marine Foundation, using art as a catalyst for conservation and education, and is creator and  co-producer of Apokalypsis, a climate change cabaret. She is a firm believer in the power of experiential learning, performance and storytelling to inspire us to tackle the big challenges the future holds.

Isabella

Isabella  completed an MSc in Environmental Technology at Imperial College with focus on Business and Sustainability, during which she co-founded 6heads. She then worked at Forum for the Future and separately developed an innovation showcase to inspire suppliers to Marks & Spencer towards sustainable solutions. In her role at Intertek she managed the environmental programme for global McDonald’s suppliers and subsequently focused on renewable energy by developing a portfolio of large-scale solar PV projects at Lightsource. Isabella is currently working at CoGen UK, a developer of Energy from Waste power plants using Advanced Gasification technologies. In addition, she founded FiltAIR to create a solution for clean air in cities.

Ellie

Listener, investigator, interrogator, explorer, collaborator and facilitator, entering a world of positive business for a better future. Ellie is fascinated by how we shift the values, mindsets and behaviours of citizens, consumers, brands and business to create a sustainable future where people and the planet can flourish. This year she joined Forum for the Future’s School of System Change to explore just that. Here she mapped complex narratives in the energy industry to inform industry wide conversation to spark change. She was also a participant in the founding year of UNLEASH LAB 2017, a global innovation lab based on the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals. Her craft has been shaped by 5 years in futures, consumer insight, and strategy at The Future Laboratory, leading research internationally with clients across multiple lifestyle sectors to keep them ahead of the innovation curve. She can now be found diving into new territories; with Dignity Platform, poised to change community giving and fundraising in Brighton, and exploring new paths with positive, impactful projects taking a system change approach.

Louis

Louis is a grassroots environmental activist, social entrepreneur and urban designer. He specialises in community development, the circular economy and permaculture, supporting pioneering clients such as RUSS, Arcola Energy and Independent Means. He has been awarded the Santander Universities Community Contribution award, and was a finalist in the Mayor of London/Siemens Low Carbon Entrepreneur Prize 2015. He is the Director of several London-based sustainability projects including The Gaia Gallery and Biomodd London, a Managing Trustee of Cob in the Community and a core-member of the 6-Heads and SEADs sustainability networks. He is passionate about creating innovative, fun and engaging spaces to address issues around climate change and communities.

 

Kerstin

Kerstin is passionate about people and our planet and believes that putting them at the heart of each business delivers results far greater than the sum of their parts. She unlocks peoples’ potential to change businesses from the inside out.

Rhys

 

Rhys truly believes the business world does not provide enough good leadership examples. He guides and challenges business leaders towards self-discovery, purpose and to make an impact. He has the heart in the right place, speaks his mind and encourages others to do so too.

Karen

Karen has worked in the third sector since 2003, after a career with a large global advertising and marketing firm.  Since turning her focus from the corporate world to the world of not-for-profit, she has accomplished many different roles within the third sector, from fundraising, event management, volunteer management, communication   strategy and front-line experience with young people with complex and multiple disadvantage.

In 2015, Karen started her own consultancy agency, Absolute Alchemy, which hosts transformational events within communities, to enable dialogue and create a call to action.  Karen is a Wellbeing Practitioner, a creative and relational practitioner, and this training has informed the way that she works on a daily basis. In 2017, Karen joined Hatch, to manage the Female Founders Accelerator Programme and to host events such as the Beyond Good Business and Hatch’s Roundtable Discussions.

Elsa

Elsa is an eternal learner, loving nothing more than discovering new people, places, cultures, theoretical or practical fields… Now based in London, she has a background in Public Policy and Management from HEC Paris and the Berlin Freie Universität. She worked for public and private organisations before being Country Finance Manager for humanitarian operations in Irak and Turkey. She believes in the convergence of environmental, (geo-)political, social & business solutions.

 

Hannah

Hannah is passionate about the role that engaging and aspirational communications play in supporting change. She has been delivering award-winning sustainability communications for over a decade, working hand-in-hand with creative teams to produce insight-led solutions that bring the issues that matter most to life. She specialises in reporting, but supports her clients on a variety of needs and challenges, including strategy and purpose, engagement and materiality, storytelling, and signature issue campaigns.

6heads advisor

Nicola

Nicola is curious about how to create positive, commercial solutions to the biggest challenges of our time.  She is an expert in collective learning as a mechanism for change and works with large companies, NGO’s, civil society and entrepreneurs to co-design innovative social and environmental solutions. She runs the Future Academy – learning together into a better future. For Interface she set-up a global innovation programme towards Mission Zero. For Marks & Spencer she helped “bring sustainability to life” for suppliers. For the Carbon Trust she originated a property fund to encourage a shift to a low carbon economy. She has supported social ventures to mainstream low income health insurance, water purification and low carbon agriculture. Nicola is a trustee of the innovative Tsiba University and 64m Artists.  Creates concepts.  Builds businesses.  Makes up stuff.  Including recipes.  Come for dinner. Bring some contentious thoughts.  Especially about sustainability, futures and systems change. www.nicolamillson.com

 

6heads previous members

James

James has a background in marketing, spanning roles from brand management of Guinness in his native Ireland to strategy and innovation management on the Baileys Global Team. In 2011 James pursued his passion for sustainability through an MSc in Business and the Environment at Imperial College. This allowed him to explore the most effective techniques for brands to engage people around sustainability, such as meaningful purpose, storytelling and aesthetic appeal. He now heads up strategy at brand engagement agency Given London, balancing a strategic, analytical approach with his love of creativity and new ideas.

Ilana

Ilana is a co-founder of Snact, an ethical snack brand that makes healthy snacks whilst also tackling the causes of food waste. Before this, Ilana worked for the Food Assembly, an online platform enabling direct trade between communities and local food producers. Prios to this, she worked in alternative finance at ICAEW (Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales) and for as a sustainability analyst for an asset manager.

 

Diahann

Diahann studied Economics at Cambridge before pursuing a 12- year career in finance and investment, which included a seven-year spell in Hong Kong. A young family stimulated her growing interest in sustainability and led to her taking the Business & Environment Option of The MSc in Environmental Technology at Imperial College in 2011. Her interest in exploring sustainability solutions within a resource-constrained world resulted in her collaboration on her thesis with BioRegional, the entrepreneurial charity. This focused on the sustainable regeneration of East London post the 2012 Olympics, using the “One Planet Living”TM framework.

Along with getting the corporate sector to engage in issues of sustainability, she is particularly interested in the creation of a more innovative and sustainable financial system.

Sonia

Sonia is a researcher at ICFI in the Sustainability and Climate Change team where she has participated in projects related to energy and environment for the European Commission. Previously, she worked briefly in the financial industry, before returning to study an MSc in Environmental Technology at Imperial College London. She is particularly interested in the potential of frugal innovation to deliver sustainable solutions to companies whilst serving consumers at the base of the economic pyramid. She also holds a BSc in Geography with Economics from the London School of Economics

Emma

Emma is passionate about forests, food, supply chains and enjoys bringing diverse communities of people together to find innovative solutions to sustainability challenges. She has recently made the move from working on Unilever’s sustainability goals to work for the WWF to influence a broader range of companies, particularly on their sourcing strategies. Starting life as a biologist and realising she was not so apt in the lab, she pursued her interest in sustainability and global change and completed the MSc in Environmental Technology at Imperial College London. She followed this up studying for a Doctorate in sustainable systems with the University of Surrey which focused on reducing the environmental impact from food supply chains. She is excited to be part of the learning journey and to have the chance to bring sustainability to life with the 6 heads community!

 

 

 

 

Arpita Raksit

Arpita graduated in 2007 in ‘Politics, Philosophy and Economics’ from Warwick University, after which she joined BNP Paribas working as an Investment and Performance Analyst for 3 years. During this time, she became actively involved in the companies’ CSR committee, managing a number of charity and community partnerships. In July 2010, Arpita joined the Indicorps Fellowship, a one year leadership programme working on grass-roots community development in rural India where she led a women’s empowerment project focused on microfinance, microenterprise and gender equity. While studying the Environmental Technology course, she is keen to identify ways to bridge the gap between environmental sustainability and poverty reduction such as exploring opportunities of moving towards a circular economy.

Beate Sonerud

Beate is currently studying for her MSc in Environmental Technology at Imperial College London, after graduating with a first-class BSc in Economics and International Development from the University of Bath in 2013. Her business experience includes a one-year internship in Climate Change Research at HSBC, and part-time work for the low-carbon consultancy firm Xyntéo. She is particularly interested in the circular economy, sustainable finance and behavioural economics. She will combine some of these interests undertaking a fellowship with the Ellen MacArthur Foundation on financing the circular economy as her MSc thesis project. Passions beyond changing the world include travelling, running and blogging.