Strategy. Action. Impact. Practice.
The Undaunted co-creates and conducts socially impactful strategic transformation with citizens across business, government, civil society organizations, community groups, academia and institutions, think tanks and social issues movements, locally and around the world.
The biggest factor in our cultural focus is The Undaunted itself. We are undaunted. We work to inspire undaunted mindsets in people everywhere. The undaunted of the world are our people and we are theirs. We are all inspired by some common principles.
The Undaunted are real people with real lives and experiences. We are all messy humans trying to make systemic sense of our society, our human condition, our world and its systems. We have come together, inspired by a love of all life, a deep punk spirit, and a heartfelt sense of the urgency of the times. Meet us through some of the people who inspire us to be undaunted again and again.
We come from a lot of places. A kind of internationale. We are based in New York, Glasgow, London, Seattle, Munich, Amsterdam, Sydney, Gothenburg, Washington DC and San Francisco. We see the undaunted everywhere we work and in everyone we work with from Afghanistan to Australia, Guatemala to Germany, Ukraine to the United Kingdom, Brazil to Benelux and many places in between. You’re welcome.
Steve Cook
Chief Strategy Officer
Glasgow
I dance with monsters. I see patterns and contexts, conditions and states. I see these across, within and between social systems, and in the lived, living and liveable experiences of ordinary people, citizens. I am and have been for 40 years, a grand strategist working with people, organisations and ecosystems across society all over the world. I've done some things. None of them matter. It is what I do next that counts. I am undaunted.
Paul Peter Piech. His bright, joyful artworks are a powerful focus on social injustice, human rights issues and the human condition in a world dominated by systemic powerplay and conflict. My five years with him inspired who I am
Russell Rieger
Chief Executive Officer
New York
I am an entrepreneur, thought leader, strategist, and senior executive with a wide range of experiences in music, media, branding, tech, marketing, startups, investment, social impact and managing artists and creators. I believe in the power of culture to inspire positive change. My core strengths are in leadership, managing teams, attracting strong talent, strategic planning, and inspiring shared purpose and goals.
Joe Strummer. "The Future is Unwritten", "WIthout People You're Nothing", "Punk ain't the boots or the hair dye... It must be the attitude that you have, that approach to everything in life with that attitude."
Melea Press. PhD
Chief Policy Officer
Glasgow
I explore social and cultural systems, and the individuals who make up these systems. I harness the lived experiences I encounter to understand the trauma and injustice that so many live with, and drive change at the individual, community, institutional and society levels. I call this Love + Legitimacy. I have published in top academic peer-reviewed journals, presented and taught across North America and Europe, and conducted research across the globe.
Emma Goldman. In late 19th century/early 20th century USA, Emma Goldman fought for women's equality, free love, birth control, workers' rights, and free universal education for everyone. She promoted a vision of hope for a better world that she insisted was within reach.
She was critical of government systems as drawing divisions between individuals, causing needless conflict. Her focus was on the context of social issues. "As an anarchist, I am opposed to violence. But if the people want to do away with assassins, they must do away with the conditions which produce murderers."
Jamie Marsden
Chief Creative Officer
London
Good design is driven by elegance and simplicity. Lasting design develops human-centric narratives that connect on a deeper level. My approach to each creative project is to understand client values, audience intricacies and the human voice behind the story. With these insights, I can push creative boundaries allowing me to craft timely, distinctive and relevant visual experiences. I’ve created campaigns for global brands as well as empowering ambitious entrepreneurs, startups and those with a story to tell.
Vaughn Oliver. “I never like to take the easy road. I like to provoke.” Perfection through imperfection. Blending traditional graphic design, abstract imagery and pushing the boundaries of typography, his iconic artwork is sometimes frightening, sometimes beautiful but always unique.
Amanda Hottekiet
Strategic Programs Lead
Gothenburg
I’m all about relationship, strategic people’s development and cooperation between cultures of different categories. I celebrate measurable, positive change for individuals, groups and communities. The smallest steps being as worthy as giant leaps. I spot correlation and thrive on facilitating connection with the potential to bring about forwards movement. Professionally and personally, I’ve been shaped by 20 years in China, more of 10 of which I lived with, and worked alongside the destitute, marginalized, homeless, recovering drug addicts and other “fallen between the cracks” of the systems of their societies. I believe in life and humanity’s inherent ability to confront fears, metamorphose, curiously collaborate and invent for good, transcending all borders we’ve created.
Muhammad Yunus. For rethinking finance-establishment and revolutionising economy for millions of poor - the vast majority women - without power to change their own circumstances.
Dominic Dibble
Strategic Communications Lead
Amsterdam
I am a lover of imagined futures that celebrate the possibility of deep relations among diverse cultures and species. I believe in the possibility of bringing futures like these into being, if humans can learn to be kinder to one other, and more humble about their role within all living systems. I celebrate and support all initiatives, tools and methods that, directly or indirectly, seek to practically realise these objectives. In my professional career, I've researched, written about, and organised meetings around some of these objectives, including discussions with prominent thinkers and activists.
Ursula Le Guin. She is a fearless, compassionate creator of imagined liveable futures.
Rebecca Carroll
Community Development Lead
New York
I believe in the power of people and possibilities. I value interpersonal relationships, connections and their benefit to communities. I am motivated and inspired by others, their passions, and creativity. My DNA in life and work is “why not?” and “Let’s do this”. I root for the underdog. Professionally, I’ve championed innovative creators and disruptors in media, music, culture, tech and local politics via social media and content marketing, and grass-roots campaigns.
Carol Gnade. An early mentor of mine, she is an entrepreneur, social justice champion, former Executive Director of the ACLU of Utah, and later the Utah Pride Center, and co-founded the Women’s Redrock Music Festival. All as a single mother of three. A can-do person if there ever was one.
We work to define the multiple, interdependent strategies, actions and outcomes required to deliver greater impact ‘in organization’, ‘in market’ and ‘in society’. We operate in a radically complex world dominated by ever-changing societal conditions and dramatically changing whole systems needs, including human systems.
Or more importantly, grand strategy. For The Undaunted, it’s all about the patterns and contexts, the conditions and states, the interdependencies and responsibilities. It’s nonlinear thinking 101.
We look at liveable experience (the future) first then relate this back to living and lived experience. We look systemically at everything around the organizations we work with, the things they are impacted by and the areas they can achieve the greatest impact ‘in organization’, ‘in market’ and ‘in society’. Then we look under the hood of their systemic state, their systems, their people and their needs.
Our aim is grand strategic insight and discovery, hypotheses development and testing… lots of testing… before arriving at robust, strategic recommendations and directions of travel.
Everything we do is designed to have action and implementation as our strategic focus. We ensure that all our strategy work can be lived and made real.
We work with everyone, inside, between and outside organizations to create robust, realistic and impactful action planning. We orchestrate all the moving parts that are essential to strategic progress. We build the deep research, data analytics and evidence to support the strategic business case and we co-create the ways in which real people can contribute to, benefit from and learn through their critical involvement.
We never lose sight of why we are all doing the work we do. Everything is focused on outcomes, or as we prefer to call these, impact.
We are acutely aware that impact can mean many things to different people, in organizations, on whole systems, in approaches to change, on real lives and the living and liveable experiences of everyone who interacts with the organizations we work with.
It is why impact is indicative of all our thinking, our strategy work and the orchestration of planning and action. We are both guided and measured by the impact our work has and this focuses our minds and informs our actions.
We learn from everything we have ever done. Every one of us and all the people we work with are constantly learning, adapting, adjusting and reforming. We are all practicing.
Grand strategy has to be this and the actions we inspire are constantly being learnt from and evolved. Key to understanding the ever-changing nature of patterns, contexts and conditions is to always look for new and better ways to achieve impact. In this, we rely on evidence and data, truth, trust and openness and a lot of sense and story making with the real people that make strategy real. We need this. We are all messy humans.
Since 2015, the people of The Undaunted have engaged in over 20,000 insight programmes and dialogues with people from across society and in-community around the world, and have been involved in multiple research programmes into the gaps between citizens and systems.
We’ve developed our insights, service propositions, impact/value outcome metrics, methodologies and processes from decades of experience in academic research, data analysis, organizational strategy and design, advisory roles at the highest levels of leadership, media, brand, the creative industries, civil society, AI technology and innovation development, economics and investment, a broad range of scientific roles and in systems/systemic change.
We are highly knowledgeable about both established systems and ‘new world’ regenerative thinking. Our engagement with old and new ideas and frameworks, in combination with our collective understanding of humanity in all its manifestations, enables us to span ‘the spaces between’ these with ease.
Our practice work is our main activity but The Undaunted is also actioning a number of impact initiatives of our own with citizen groups and communities around the world. All these add to our understanding, our learning and our practice. You’re welcome.
We are excited by the idea of you being undaunted. No matter who you are, we would love to hear from you and learn how we can contribute, messy human to messy human, to your business, community, NGO, institution or governmental role. Please get in touch. We'd love to hear from you. You're welcome.
