I’M JESS, FOUNDER OF KOMMON GROUND

I’m the typical character you’d expect to find when the siren call of skills, opportunity and equity is heard. Generous with my time, vivacious in my outlook and fiercely determined to make an impact.

Much of that, I expect, was cultivated by a childhood growing up with a visual impairment, and the gnawing realisation that other people’s assumptions can sometimes arrive before you’ve had the chance to demonstrate your own capability.

Layer that with a late diagnosis of ADHD, and it perhaps makes sense that I see relationships between things other people tend to hold separately. I am unusually associative, with a galvanising intensity, and can translate complexity with ease.

So when you work with me that’s who you get – someone who sees how the system could be working – and where it isn’t. An expert networker, described by others as the ‘connective tissue’ (not the prettiest of symbolisations, but you get it). And endlessly innovative. Responding to the requirement is one thing, but I’m interested in the new idea. The connection nobody has made yet. The creative solution that changes what might be possible. Because isn’t that what creating opportunity is all about?

Well, you’ll get that approach in abundance when you work with me.

REDEFINING KOMMON GROUND

I’m an advocate for inclusive growth, and for a version of prosperity that genuinely reaches people.

I’ve had the unusual privilege of seeing the hardwiring behind that prosperity from several different angles. I’ve seen how billions of pounds of public-private investment moves from strategic ambition, through governance and commercial decision-making, into delivery, and how it ultimately translates into workforce demand, skills requirements and outcomes for places and people.

I’ve directed complex bid and governance processes on the £5bn TransPennine Route Upgrade, commercially led a £25m Network Rail portfolio, and scoped investment in skills outcomes as part of the £5bn Liverpool Central Regeneration Zone. I’ve seen how decisions made upstream shape the opportunities that eventually emerge downstream.

I’ve also worked at the other end of that system. Leading skills and social impact strategy for global firm AtkinsRéalis, I worked across schools and colleges, national government, mayoral combined authorities, industry and the organisations trying to connect people to those opportunities.

PLACE

With Andy Burnham at the Greater Manchester Strategy Launch, launching the BeeLine video as part of the Manchester Baccalaureate (MBacc)

OPPORTUNITY

Meeting HRH The Princess Royal, Patron of UK Youth, and discussing the importance of youth provision in helping young people develop the social and emotional skills, confidence and connections that underpin their future opportunities.

EQUITY

As thought leader for the concept of industry-led school governance, rolling my sleeves up as a Together Trust Governor to help special educational needs young people visualise their futures in the context of digital and technology growth sectors.

I GOT EXTREMELY FRUSTRATED BY THE CHAOS I SAW….

EMPLOYERS not knowing how to put their best foot forward, or how to use their expertise and capacity to do more than spontaneous, (sometimes unqualified) classroom enrichment.

GOVERNMENT with oodles of sensible policy ambition, but struggling to articulate it in a way that inspires industry to go back-to-back with its intent and help make change.

EDUCATION settings crowded by the perplexing terminology of Industrial Strategies, Growth Sectors and an A–Z directory of employment pathways.

There is unbounded enthusiasm everywhere you look. But too often, all that brilliant effort results in a thousand good projects… and not necessarily a good system.

THAT’S WHERE KOMMON GROUND CAME FROM.

So what if we could channel all of that differently?

See clearly. Align intentionally. Steward what matters.

Not another programme, initiative or intervention clogging up the skills system pipes, but a means of connecting what already exists, understanding where the gaps really are, and redefining the common ground from which different parts of a system can act.

That’s the work I wanted to build a business around.