For our first guest we caught up with James Allen, owner / MD of Counsel - a boutique policy and public affairs consultancy working across the voluntary, statutory and sports sectors.

In many ways James was the perfect first guest for us - one of Gethyn’s longtime collaborators, he was a crucial point of reference as our co-host started out on his own solo journey, as well as occupying a professional space in between Gethyn (non-profit sector) and Simon (motorsport).

James’ career began with political ambitions but was curtailed by a lack of the personal networks so crucial to advancing in that world. Nevertheless, he developed a niche influencing the political space through the sports and voluntary sectors, albeit in a quite a different environment to the one we see today.

After holding a number of senior positions in non-profit trade bodies and membership organisations, James took the leap to go solo after realising he could provide a better, cleaner service outside of the trappings for a larger organisation. IN this episode he not only recounts this journey but describes how he designs his services, how to charge without guilt and what he won’t do for money.

Towards the end of the episode we take a deep dive into the inequalities still rampant in the sports sector covering the shortcomings around athlete welfare, financial inequalities in motorsport and what we can really do to improve gender diversity in participation.
Connect with James on LinkedIn

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