The story, the values, the awards and mostly the team
Enabling innovative thinking through best practice stakeholder dialogue
Our Awards
We are a small company, but we achieve a lot! We have high standards and take great pride in the fantastic feedback we get from participants and sponsoring organisations.
As well as fantastic feedback, the awards we’ve won prove that our methods really are effective and leave a positive impact. Many of the awards recognise the work we have done as a company, but our director Diana Pound has also received some accolades as an individual.
Meet our team
If you have a stakeholder project you need assistance with or need facilitation training, just get in touch!
The Dialogue Matters Team is small but highly experienced and award winning. In addition to the core team, we draw on the knowledge and expertise of a range of associates as and when a project requires.
Diana Pound (BSc, MSc, FCIEEM, CEnv)
Director: Diana steers the Dialogue Matters ship by drawing upon over 20 years of experience in stakeholder dialogue within the environmental sector.
Ross Freeman (BA, MSc)
Project & Team Manager: Ross combines his 10 years of management experience with his knowledge of sustainability to lead excellent stakeholder dialogue processes and training events.
Imogen George (BSc)
Project Officer: Imogen has broad experience of engaging young people with nature through several people-focused and educational roles. Now she uses her knowledge and people skills to facilitate and co-ordinate best practice stakeholder participation processes.
Zoe Bullivant (BSc)
Project Officer: Zoe has worked in practical and therapeutic conservation, social care, and rewilding. She has developed a passion for empowerment and communication and uses her interpersonal skills to co-ordinate and facilitate outstanding stakeholder dialogue.
Aimee Williams (BSc)
Project Co-ordinator: Aimee joined Dialogue Matters in August 2024. During her studies, she focussed on systems thinking and how it can improve stakeholder engagement in environmental decisions. She now competently supports process and event delivery at DM.
Annisa Hussain
Office Manager: Annisa skilfully manages the Dialogue Matters office and administration, which supports all the stakeholder dialogue work we do.
Joel Pound
Associate: Joel worked full-time at Dialogue Matters for over 6 years and spent 3 of those years as Deputy Director. He’s an accomplished lead facilitator, lead trainer, and project manager.
Kathryn Soares
Associate: Kathryn is an internationally experienced environmental scientist and has built an excellent reputation as a facilitator of principled negotiation, stakeholder dialogue and consensus building.
Lucy Armitage
Associate: Lucy began working with Dialogue Matters in 2006. As an associate, she leads the delivery of training and workshops. She is a confident facilitator of complex and contentious stakeholder dialogue.
Lisa Chilton
Associate: Lisa is an accomplished facilitator and engagement specialist with extensive marine environment experience. She has worked across various sectors and at local and national levels for over 20 years.
Christiane Vallury-Nitsch
Associate: Chrissie has worked as a field geologist in the field of sustainable mountain development and has undertaken a PhD in land use visions for rural Scotland.
Sassy
Well-being Officer: With a pe-digree in herding and psychology, Sassy ensures the well-being of the DM team. She encourages affection, mindfulness and spending time outdoors.
How Dialogue Matters began
In the 1990s Diana was charged with managing one of the first European Marine Sites in the UK. At this time, authorities were challenging the site’s management and threatening legal action. Diana responded to this tension and conflict by commissioning a consensus building process. The process allowed for honest discussion and succeeded in a progressive outcome, without the need for any expensive legal battles.
Following this success, Diana did some further training, specifically in enabling environmental stakeholder dialogue, before setting up Dialogue Matters in 2000.
By 2003 Diana normalised the company and made it what it is today.
What we are today
We have designed and facilitated over 100 Stakeholder Dialogue processes in environmental management cases and trained over 2000 people in how to run their own effective participation processes. Our work is diverse, and has included guiding communities through local development challenges, helping stakeholders find agreement in integrated natural resource management, encouraging researchers to share and co-produce knowledge, and aiding international organisations in policy development.
Our values
Encouraging: We don’t come into projects as top-down experts. Instead we enable people to share knowledge and ideas.
Constructive: We help people to focus on what is working well and use that as a foundation for establishing what else needs to happen.
Collaborative: We encourage full co-production, which means environmental professionals work with communities and other stakeholders; sharing the responsibility to both plan and implement change.
Holistic: We take an ‘integrated systems thinking’ approach which looks at the big picture.
Cutting-edge: We keep on the front foot of best practice through our own innovation and through working with people who are leaders in their field.
Productive: We help people share understanding and build consensus – not weak compromise – about mutually acceptable and sustainable ways forward.
“Liked the way you responded to the group’s questions and needs.”
“Good blend of theory, case examples and practical skills.”
“The training teams’ enthusiasm and experience came across very well.”
“Professionally run, though informal and enjoyable.”
“Most enjoyable training I’ve had in a long time.”
“I liked the way we learnt techniques and did real work at the same time.”
“Excellent to be able to learn through doing it ourselves and watching others’ styles.”