A little context
My work comes from studying these things, living these things, and building through them.
Credentials are at the bottom, where they belong.
Credentials are at the bottom, where they belong.
How we got here
Five chapters, loosely chronological
- Then
Two cultures, one child, zero instructions
Nigerian at home, Irish everywhere else. I learned early that behaviour is contextual, that the same sentence lands differently in different rooms, and that people decide who you are before you speak. I didn't have the word for it yet. The word was culture.
- The study
Becoming a cultural psychologist
A doctorate in cultural and social psychology: intergroup relations, prejudice, identity and belonging. Years of reading how groups form, who gets excluded, and what actually changes minds. Research gave me evidence for things I had felt my whole life.
- The build
Founding GORM
I started GORM to move the research out of the journals and into workplaces, intercultural learning, organisational development, working across difference. With by business partner Beatriz Gómez Moreno, we grew GORM into a multi-award winning social enterprise. Building it taught me a second curriculum entirely: fundraising, sales, public speaking, power, negotiation, being underestimated in meetings and still winning the room.
- The rooms
Learning the unwritten rules
Boardrooms, broadcast studios, investor calls, stages. Nobody hands you the handbook for any of them. I reverse-engineered it, occasionally badly, and started writing down what I found.
- Now
Thinking out loud, on purpose
Content, essays, keynotes and a newsletter. Not because the world needs more content, but because the people I'd have wanted to hear from at 24 are still hard to find.
I am still a work in progress, but this is the platform to grow together.
What I'm chasing next
The questions currently open on my desk
- ✦What does cultural capital actually look like as a practical skill?
- ✦How do people build influence in systems that weren't designed with them in mind?
- ✦Where is the line between adapting strategically and disappearing?
- ✦What replaces 'confidence' as advice for people who were never the default?
- ✦Can belonging be engineered, or only invited?
A framework is forming. It doesn't have a name yet. Give me a minute.
For the record
My Credentials, briefly
- PhD, Cultural & Social Psychology
- Founder & CEO, GORM
- Ireland's First Echoing Green Fellow
- National Radio Presenter, Newstalk
- Published researcher on intergroup relations and identity
- Regular contributor on culture, identity and belonging across broadcast media
Advisory & board work
I take on a small number of personal advisory roles each year, strategic, cultural and founder advisory, board seats and ambassadorships where my perspective is the point. This is distinct from GORM's organisational services.
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For organisations
Are you an organisation looking for a training programme for your team?
Talk to my team in GORM — we deliver intercultural training, consultancy and leadership programmes built for organisations and communities that are ready to unify across differences.
Talk to the GORM team ↗One last thing
If any of this made you think — the newsletter is where it continues.
No spam. Occasional tangents. Always my own words.