School of System Change

We know that growing a global community of change agents is our best chance to accelerate a transition to a sustainable future. Want to know more?

Rachel Phillips

Co-founder & Principal Consultant, Edge Effects
@edgeefx

Rachel is a systemic leadership, strategy and learning facilitator and coach, with over 15 years’ experience designing and facilitating innovative, participatory leadership and change processes for sustainable development. She uses her experience in adult learning, participatory process and systemic leadership to support organisations, coalitions and individuals to unlock effective responses to complex systemic challenges. Working across private sector, public sector and civil society across the global north and global south, Rachel has a facilitated a variety of strategy processes, multi-stakeholder interventions and sustainability leadership programmes.

Before co-founding Edge Effects, Rachel held Director of Learning positions within Lead International and Earthwatch Institute, leading client consulting processes alongside developing organisational strategy and internal capacity. Prior to this, Rachel spent 15 years working at operational and strategic levels in sales and marketing at Unilever & PepsiCo.

Rachel is a passionate lifelong learner. She holds an MSc in Sustainability and Responsibility, a BA (Hons) in Business Studies and certificates in a range of leadership disciplines, including NLP master practitioner, co-active coaching, PI Theory U Foundation Programme, Constellations and Systemic Coaching, Action Learning Facilitation and Lewis Deep Democracy L2.

"I believe systems change agents have such an important role to play in transitioning to a more inclusive and flourishing world. Supporting people to develop their systemic practice and become more effective change agents is one of my ways to contribute to that world."

Latest

Trustee1

Do you want to create an impactful change addressing critical global challenges? Do you have a collaborative approach to relationship building, a successful track record of leading through change, experience in convening and a commitment to our mission?
Lauren Meadow

Principal Strategist, US
From Silos to Synergy: Why we need greater dialogue and collective action in food and apparel value chains

Food and fibre industries are facing and further perpetuating complex and interconnected challenges across global value chains. In this blog, Forum’s Associate Director for UK and Europe, Hannah Cunneen, explores what we’re seeing across food and fibre systems, and the opportunities for cross-sectoral collaborations in meeting social and environmental challenges head on.
Why visionary leadership is essential for climate justice progress

Through a series of interviews and workshops with frontline community leaders and experts, we’ve heard that climate justice progress is slow and solutions are not directly benefiting communities. Here, Ksenia Benifand, Forum’s Senior Principal Change Designer, explores how the private sector can embrace its role and responsibility in creating equity-centered, collaborative climate justice solutions, through our recently co-published Business Guide to Advancing Climate Justice.

Zoya Lukyanova

Zoya is a skilled facilitator and ecosystem enabler for impact driven networks, cross-sector collaborations and social innovation. She is a network partner for the School of System Change in Eastern Europe and Central Asia, facilitating learning experiences and cultivating the field in this region.
Joy Green

Joy is deeply experienced in using Futures for system change. She has fifteen years experience of applying foresight and system change methodologies across a wide range of sectors and organisations.
Marion Birnstill

Marion is a seasoned global health and partnering professional with 15 years’ experience spanning a career working for leading organisations across the private, public and non-profit sectors.
Mabel C. L. Mungomba

Mabel is CEO of Belcomm Limited, a Marketing and Brand building agency, and UPSTART Skills Bank which focuses on training and consultancy in Organization Development, Strategic Planning, Enterprise development, Leadership, Change Management and assisting progressive organizations design strategic plans and tailor made development programs for their staff.
Constança Belchior

Constança is a facilitator and designer of collaboration and innovation processes for sustainability and regenerative development. She belongs to a collective dedicated to transformative change - in teams, organisations and fields of action - grounded on an integral and living systems approach.
Jonathan Munro

Jonathan is Associate Director for Criminal Justice & Care Navigation for Rethink Mental Illness, a national mental health charity in the UK. He has over 20 years of experience working in Health and Justice environments, having worked in both operational and strategic roles.
Malik Gul

Malik is Director of the Wandsworth Community Empowerment Network based in south London, which addresses the structural inequalities and systemic racism that leads to discrimination, poverty and hardship, by unlocking the capabilities of frontline community groups and their members to be the agents of change within their own neighbourhoods and constituencies.
Louisa Hooper

Louisa Hooper, Senior Programme Manager, leads on the UK Branch’s Environment theme at the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, currently focusing on initiatives to promote the value of the ocean. She has previously worked in publishing, communications and education (including in rural Japan) and is a writer in her spare time.
Rinku Sen

Rinku Sen, Executive Director of Narrative Initiative, is a writer and social justice strategist. She is formerly the Executive Director of Race Forward and was Publisher of their award-winning news site Colorlines.
Glenda Eoyang

Glenda Eoyang works with public and private organizations to help them thrive in the face of overwhelming complexity and uncertainty. She is a pioneer in the applications of complexity science to human systems, and she founded the field of human systems dynamics (HSD) in 2001.

The Five Capitals - a framework for sustainability

The Five Capitals Model provides a basis for understanding sustainability in terms of the economic concept of wealth creation or ‘capital’. Any organisation will use five types of capital to deliver its products or services. A sustainable organisation will maintain and where possible enhance these stocks of capital assets, rather than deplete or degrade them.
Jobs

We are a growing organisation and we are regularly on the look out for new recruits to join our teams around the world.
For a just and regenerative future

Forum for the Future is a leading international sustainability organisation running out of offices in the UK, US, India and Singapore.
Growing our Future US

Working together to accelerate the transition to a just and regenerative agriculture system in the United States.
Sustainability and system change

Climate change, malnutrition, inequality, poverty, ecological degradation. The global challenges we face are so urgent and tricky that we need a solution to match their scale and complexity. This is where system change comes in. We use systems thinking to understand the web of interrelations that create complex problems, anticipate unintended consequences, and identify how and where to take action to meet the SDG goals.
What is Net Positive?

We reinvent strategies for a 1.5°C world. Our Net Positive approach helps business put back more into society and environment than it takes out. Unilever’s pioneering commitment to eliminate fossil fuels from its operations and directly support the generation of more renewable energy than they consume was driven behind the scenes by Forum.
Transport or Mobility: What’s the difference and why does it matter?

Recently, the word transportation is being replaced with mobility. Why is this happening? What’s the difference between them? And why should we care about this change?
6 ways Unilever has achieved success through sustainability - and how your business can too

A year ago this week, Unilever launched its Sustainable Living Plan (USLP), one of the most ambitious strategies that a global company has ever embarked on. Pioneering a bold new business model, the company pledged to double in size at the same time as halving its environmental footprint.
Become a system change agent

Learn more about upcoming system change programmes and express your interest.
Transforming the Purpose of Business

More and more businesses like are setting ambitious targets for positive impact on their operations, value chains and wider operating context. For more than 25 years we have partnered with businesses to navigate this complexity and design impactful solutions that deliver the deeper change that’s needed. Why not get in touch to find out more?