The Work
Established for the East Midlands, our mission is to support inclusive growth and impact. We enrich the region with a core commitment to cycling profits into deliberative democracy approaches, bringing unheard voices into the heart of decision making.
Roots and Futures offers traditional strategy skills for organisations to review their market, competitive edge and design the vision and organisational transformation needed to future proof. However, Roots and Futures takes the innovative approach of enabling better strategy design by supporting to root an organisation in place and connecting its leadership to local community. The result is purposeful strategy design with well thought out social value, sustainability and employee engagement.
What the Work Focuses On
Roots & Futures focuses on place-based strategy, research and practical tools that support long-term decision-making.
The work centres on helping organisations understand place, design strategy rooted in local context, and develop approaches that support economic renewal, systems change and regeneration over time.
Place Nutrition™
Supporting organisations to understand place as a strategic asset — grounding decisions in local context, lived experience and long-term responsibility.
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Place-based strategy development
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Strategy review and reset
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Systems thinking and context analysis
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Auditing of projects and programmes
Leadership & Decision Making
Helping leaders navigate complexity, uncertainty and competing priorities with clarity, care and confidence.
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Strategic advisory support
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Leadership and executive decision-making support
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100-day leadership and transition support
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Facilitated executive retreats and conversations
Future Thinking
Generating insight to inform better long-term decisions - combining research, lived experience and future thinking.
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Research, insight and evidence gathering
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Future scenarios and long-term planning
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Strategic foresight and systems thinking
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Designing future-ready strategies
Collaboration &
Facilitation
Creating the conditions for collaboration, experimentation and shared learning across organisations and sectors.
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Facilitated workshops and collaborative sessions
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Stakeholder engagement and cross-sector working
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Shared learning and sense-making
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Developing and launching platforms, inluding The Common
How the Work is Delivered
Engagements are shaped around the needs of each organisation and place.
Work may include strategic advisory support, facilitated retreats and workshops, research and learning partnerships, or pilot initiatives developed in collaboration with partners.
Ways We Work
Strategic
Advisory Support
Strategy creation and review, executive support and systems-focused approaches to help organisations navigate complexity and long-term change.
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Strategy creation and review
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100-day executive retreats
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Systems change design
Research and Learning
Research-led work that builds insight through case studies, learning partnerships and knowledge sharing to inform policy, practice and place-based decision-making.
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Case studies and papers
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Partnered academic research
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Policy briefs and learning outputs
Innovation Funding
Developing and managing funding approaches that support regenerative pilots, place-based initiatives and new models for collaboration.
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Pilot models of regeneration
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Philanthropy and fund management
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Developing initiatives such as The Common
Who The Work Is For
Roots & Futures works with organisations and leaders who value depth, integrity and long-term thinking.
This includes public sector organisations, social enterprises, and community-led and place-based organisations, as well as mission-driven teams and partnerships.
Led by experience.
Roots & Futures is founded by Lauren Thompson, a place-first strategist with internal government and private sector consulting expertise working across the East Midlands.
Lauren brings together strategic thinking, ability to naturally convene and deep government insight that supports organisations to navigate complexity with clarity, care and confidence. Working closely with leaders looking to reinvigorate tired strategies, she focuses on taking an organisation from vision to action within 100 days to make the desired positive impact.
Her work focuses on human-centred strategy bringing place, sustainability and people to the forefront of classic strategy design to prevent communities from being left behind by government and business.
Lauren is the creator of the Place Nutrition™ framework and is building “The Common”, an approach to deliberative democracy that uses art and music as the primary feedback mechanism.
