October 2021 marks twenty years since Rocket Science was officially launched and an important milestone for Rocket Scientists. But it also represents an even more important milestone for the future of the organization, its role, values and growth.
For those of you who do not know, our remaining founder directors John Griffiths and Richard Scothorne (who are still and will be very much around!), passed the reins of the business to our three directors. Caroline Masundire, Cherri Blissett and Clare Hammond (affectionately known as the 3C’s) took ownership back in February this year.
The 3Cs have been with Rocket Science for many years. Caroline started back in August 2007 and has been running the London office with John since then. Cherri joined us in February 2008 and left and rejoined us twice, coming back in 2020 to lead our work in the North East. Clare emigrated from New Zealand back in 2015 and joined Rocket Science in our Edinburgh office in March that year.
It has been very much business as usual, with few bumps in the process of transition and a good year for growth. But with new ownership comes new ideas, new challenges and new opportunities to think differently.
The pandemic has been a game-changer
We have worked with clients to understand and manage the impact of the pandemic on people from all walks of life. Its role in widening existing inequalities, its impact on health and wellbeing and the yet to understand impact on children and young people’s life chances and education.
This insight and experience has challenged us to rethink how we
- articulate our mission and values
- use our independence, consultancy and grants management experience to move beyond identifying the problem and solution to supporting implementation
- harness our unique position as an all-female leadership to both challenge and inspire new ways of thinking and working as a business with a social purpose.
Together, we have been through many changes, market highs and lows and great challenges, not least managing through a pandemic. As women in our 30’s, 40’s and 50’s we have a range of life experience, most notably as primary carers. Ordinarily this might not be unique, but to be leading an organisation in this field of research and consultancy as an all-female team, is pretty rare.
Seriously, we are taking this opportunity to do things differently
We want to:
- challenge the norms associated with leadership and that there can be only one, we are developing a shared MD model to bring the best from all of us to the task
- use our position to inspire others and to tackle inequalities by placing the needs of people at the heart of all we do
- become an exemplar of diversity and inclusion and find new ways to bring people into our field of work from different communities and services and develop new ideas and thinking.
Most of all we want to build on the amazing work of Rocket Scientists who help us, help our clients make a difference to the people and communities they work with.
