Doug Shaw
Partner
What’s he like then?
Deeply interested in mental health, and endlessly curious about how we can use the arts to help us see, think, feel, and do things differently. Community engagement and development is at the heart of what Doug is and does. He believes we’re better together, and enjoys exploring what this means with and for organisations, teams, and the wider community.
Doug is fascinated by uncertainty, and works to be as comfortable as he can be while working with not knowing. He is fascinated by people’s inherent creative abilities, and loves working to make it easier for people to explore their creativity, and to bring the best of themselves to the task at hand.
What’s he done?
After spending 12 years in a variety of managerial roles in BT focusing on sales, marketing, sustainability, and people, Doug has invested the last decade working with all kinds of people in all kinds of places. Closest to home, his working relationship with Sutton Community Farm is literally just a few hundred metres from the front door, and his most distant client is headquartered in Melbourne, Australia. Doug sometimes works as a consultant, sometimes as an artist, and sometimes as both of these things. He’s been fortunate to work with a range of organisations including: Thomson Reuters, Guide Dogs, Herman Miller, CIPD, Ocee Design, Russell-Cooke Solicitors, and many more. As a visual artist, Doug is proud to have been rejected four times (so far) by The Royal Academy’s Summer Exhibition judges. Doug hides art works in his neighbourhood each week for people to find, and his art sells and hangs in homes all over the world.
Why does he bother?
Why not? We only get one shot at this life, so let’s explore what living it well looks like, together.
Is he qualified?
Doug has a diploma in Business Strategy and Sales Management from Leeds Beckett University. He studied a Foundation Course in Improvisation with The Improvisation Academy, and he regularly studies on a wide range of short creative practice courses. Doug is a volunteer careers advisor for Inspiring The Future, and a board member at Arts Network Sutton.
Some quotes to know him by…
‘Without people, you’re nothing’
Joe Strummer
‘We’re only immortal for a limited time’
Neil Peart
Back to team