Our People

Amanda leads Avanti's work on culture, teams and engagement, from whole-council values programmes to coaching cabinets and leadership teams. She has supported boards and executive teams for more than twenty years, across the NHS, housing, local government, construction, medical devices and media, and was Chief Operating Officer and a board member of Capital People.

Recent work includes a culture, values and behaviour programme involving every member of staff and every councillor; a mayor and cabinet development programme for a London borough; a unitary transformation programme, including preparing members for the new council; scrutiny development for a rural district; and coaching the leader and cabinet of a minority administration.

Her PhD from the University of South Wales, built on Arnstein's Ladder of Participation, examined what it takes for engagement to move beyond consultation into genuine co-production, with a particular focus on the voices least often heard. She is qualified in mindfulness, meditation, cognitive behavioural therapy and rational emotive behaviour therapy, and in a wide range of psychometric instruments.

Amanda has worked internationally with women in leadership across sectors, and has held board roles with EatSleep Media and Focus Shift Films. Together with Jon, she has advised organisations including Amey, Dŵr Cymru, Amplyfi and Siemens.

Jon brings more than twenty-five years of leading from the inside: as a council leader, a chief executive, a chair and an adviser, and as a coach to leaders from first-line supervisors to chief executives. His doctorate from Cranfield University studied top team leadership in local government, and that research, alongside a Tavistock grounding in group relations, shapes how Avanti works with senior teams and boards.

He began his career in finance, with Goldman Sachs and Standard Chartered, before two decades as a chair, chief executive and strategic adviser. He was Chief Executive of Capital People; Chair of Trivallis, where he led the governance reform that took one of Wales' largest housing associations out of regulatory intervention; and Chair of the group of Chairs of Welsh housing associations. As Chair of Butterfly Data he guided its move to an Employee Ownership Trust and B Corp.

For seventeen years he was a councillor in Rhondda Cynon Taf, including as Leader, and for more than a decade a National Lead for the IDeA and the Local Government Association. He has been a Senior Adviser to PA Consulting and a Principal Associate of CIPFA; a board member of the RCT Health Board and the South Wales Police Authority; a governor of the universities of Cardiff, Swansea and Glamorgan; and represented Wales on the European Committee of the Regions. Today he chairs the Mind Cymru Pwyllgor, sits on the board of Mind UK and is Chair of Chairs for Mind in Wales.

Jon holds a DBA from Cranfield, master's degrees in behavioural psychology and in European policy and behavioural economics from the LSE, and a degree in management and law from the LSE. He is a CIPFA-qualified chartered public finance accountant (CPFA) and a Fellow of the ILM.

Ben works with leadership teams on the foundations that turn ambition into results: strategy, financial modelling, digital systems, procurement and bids. He combines a degree in commercial law and a master's in corporate finance with a practical understanding of how organisations really work, and is as comfortable in a complex procurement portal as in a conversation about long-term direction.

His career includes Trivallis, Capital People and Acuity Law, and he holds an executive role at Trinity and the Trinity Foundation, focused on homelessness prevention and community support. He is completing a programme in leadership and entrepreneurship at Harvard and leads a technology venture improving how people access services.

Outside work, Ben is a Grade 8 pianist. He became a master diver on his twelfth birthday, the youngest in the world, an achievement marked by the Mayor of Rhondda Cynon Taf and reported in the press.