navigating Risk by Leveraging Complexity

Minerva SRM provides bespoke social risk management services, enabling you to develop and maximise your Social Performance.

We achieve this by employing complexity thinking to understand and influence the social domain, ensuring you optimise results and protect your businesses.

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Complex or Complicated?

We see a fundamental difference between the complex and the complicated, neither is better or worse they are just different.  Where humans and their interactions are involved, things  quickly become complex.

This is where we specialise, operating in complex adaptive systems.

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The Team

Minerva’s team consists of a diverse set of knowledges, skills and experiences, which are combined in unique ways for every project.

The fundamental principle is that a multi-disciplinary approach is essential to social risk management and our team are united by a drive to create stable operating environments for our clients and their stakeholders.

Meet the Team

We bring questions,
not TEMPLATED answers.

We don’t start with any of the answers, but we know how to help you and your stakeholders find them.

That way local context is baked-in to everything we do.

Why Minerva?

Minerva’s experience

Minerva has global experience and a network of associates to match, with a focus upon Africa and Central, South & South-East Asia.  While clients have previously come from a multitude of sectors,  our services are particularly applicable to:

Energy & Extractives

Manufacturing

Agribusiness

Risk & security

Insurance, Legal & financial Services

Governments

WORKED IN OVER0COUNTRIES
More than0CLIENTS, ACROSS SECTORS
More than0Languages Spoken

Case Studies

Aug 03 2024

Facilitating responsible investment and business operations through provision of Social Risk Management Training

Background: Minerva SRM delivered a multi-year training programme for the investees of a development finance institution, to build their...
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Jul 24 2024

Supporting private sector response to COVID-19 outbreak through Social Risk Management

Background: Minerva SRM were asked to provide rapid support to a financial institution's investees in response to the global COVID-19...
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Jul 24 2024

Stakeholder engagement to assure pilot project for global energy provider

Background: A major energy company was working on the development of oil extraction from agricultural crops. They had made significant...
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Jul 24 2024

Strengthening Safeguarding in wildlife conservation delivery

Background: Minerva SRM were instructed to support a global conservation organisation re-evaluate and re-design their social safeguards...
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Jul 24 2024

Behavioural change to deliver responsible security practices

Background: In Kenya, Minerva SRM worked with an agricultural subsidiary of a London-listed conglomerate to understand the societal...
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Jul 24 2024

Restoring operational and reputational capability through understanding local context

Background In Mexico, Minerva SRM staff worked with a European consumer products company to combat the influence of organised crime...
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Jul 24 2024

Mediating inter-community tensions to stabilize operational productivity

Background: Minerva SRM staff devised rapid-impact interventions to help the national subsidiary of a major oil & gas corporation...
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Jul 24 2024

Defeating Ebola through stakeholder engagement

Background: In 2015, as part of the UK government’s contribution to the anti-Ebola operation in Sierra Leone, Minerva SRM deployed a...
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Jul 24 2024

Facilitating strategy design for effective operations in fragile and conflict-affected areas worldwide

Background: Minerva SRM was contracted to help a Swiss-based international development organisation review its overarching goals and...
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Jul 24 2024

Using complexity science to tackle child labour in a fragile region to deliver responsible business

Background: Minerva SRM was contracted by an international human rights foundation to conduct a Social Risk Assessment centred on child...
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Our Case Studies

Contact Us - Get in touch with us to see how we can support your Social Performance journey.  Join our mailing list to receive our free newsletter and stay up to date on the latest developments in Social Risk Management.

Tamsanqa Mlilo

Principal Consultant, Mediation and Civil Society

Role

Tamsanqa has spent his career addressing human rights issues across Africa, focusing upon working with civil society organisations to do so. His work has included capacity building, empowerment and education in the human rights field, aligned to the delivery of localised conflict mediation to create the space for social justice to be realised.

Work

Tamsanqa has worked extensively in southern Africa, delivering projects on behalf of international organisations as well as local initiatives. In Zimbabwe has worked with indigenous communities to transform conflict through facilitating a reconciliation process. This involved creating workshops and clubs for survivors to share their experiences, leveraging the education sector. This included training of teachers and students to establish and run clubs and the production of a manual to support them. As the regional director for the organisation, he also was responsible for strategic planning, advocacy and liaison with the donor community, especially embassies and foreign missions.

In both South Africa and Zimbabwe he founded the Mediation for Peace and Human Rights Centre, an independent non-profit trust which engages in research, community interventions, advocacy, policy development, education and training. Working with Civil Society Organisation, Tamsanqa undertakes research on the shifting forms of conflict to build collaborative efforts to hold state and global institutions accountable.

Background

Tamsanqa has published over 50 articles on human rights issues in Southern Africa and has won six prizes from the British Broadcasting Corporation for his work. He has worked regionally as an Election Observer since 1994and initiated the “Monitor’ network, a platform for organisations to discuss concerns on human rights abuses in the region. Fluent in English, Zulu, Bdebele and Swati, Tamsanqa also speaks basic German.

Phil Weatherill

Strategic Advisor

Role

Phil advises on the strategy, operational management and frontline implementation of community engagement and development programmes. He directs and participates in information gathering and analysis activities, ensuring all key stakeholders are engaged, thereby facilitating a common understanding of complex socio-political settings amongst all parties and enabling effective intervention measures. He directs and implements activities designed to reduce violent conflict and facilitate political processes, reconciliation and peace-building.

Work

In Afghanistan, working for the UK Government, Phil co-ordinated the planning, funding and delivery of a multi-million pound, multi-vector, civil-military programme to reduce violence and support peaceful political processes and socio-economic development. Later, as a frontline District Stabilisation Team leader, he was instrumental in securing a peace agreement that reconciled long-alienated communities to government rule in the country’s most conflict-affected district.

In South Sudan, working for the United Nations, Phil engaged with all stakeholders to understand increasing local political tensions and facilitate timely stabilisation interventions, which reduced the likelihood or mitigated the severity of inter-community conflict, thereby establishing a platform for a peaceful political process.

Background

Prior to joining Minerva, Phil worked in the Middle East for a leading engineering company (Buro Happold), in Africa and Asia for major international non-governmental organisations (Oxfam, Red Cross, Medecins Sans Frontiers), and as a specialist conflict & stabilisation advisor (UK Government). Besides being a Chartered Civil Engineer, he holds Master’s degrees in Environmental Engineering and International Relations.

Jack Ntumwa

Senior Consultant, Security

Role

Jack examines his client’s operations to determine the best way of providing them with sustainable and cost-effective security, taking into account the systemic risks surrounding them. He assesses risks, and works with clients and colleagues to formulate management plans, design policies and procedures, and initiate implementation. Combining his skills as an investigator with his understanding of the Voluntary Principles on Security and Human Rights (VPSHR), Jack also helps clients assess and respond to modern slavery and child labour risks in their operations and supply chains, enabling them to comply confidently with international standards and best practice.

Work

In Uganda, working as Security Operations Supervisor for an oil exploration and production company, Jack implemented a security programme that embedded the VPSHR, and oversaw requisite training and capacity building across the workforce - not only the security function - in order to ensure security was delivered with due regard for the impact of operations on local communities. As a result, the company significantly improved local stakeholder trust in its brand and reputation, which strengthened its social performance record against KPIs, with commensurate benefits for investors.

Working in East Africa for an international security provider, Jack led strategic internal reviews that transformed the company’s operating model, ushered in a more gender-balanced workforce and drove the development of a better-informed and better-motivated workforce. The resulting uplift in workforce skills and performance resulted in deeper client satisfaction and improved sales.

Background

Jack has nearly 30 years of diverse experience delivering responsible security management for companies operating in Uganda. He served in the Ugandan Air Force, practised as a security investigator and private prosecutor in the Ugandan utilities sector (UEB and Eskom), and subsequently spent nine years overseeing security for Tullow Oil’s portfolio of interests in Uganda. He has also worked for international security providers (ArmorGroup) and as an independent security consultant. Jack holds a degree in Theology and Philosophy, studied law at LDC (Uganda), and later trained in security and risk management at Cranfield University (UK). He is fluent in both English and Swahili and also speaks elementary German. He is a passionate and accomplished musician, singing, playing multiple instruments and sharing his love of music through collaborations, performances and teaching.

Dr. Stephen Herron

Senior Consultant, Social Anthropology and Behaviour

Role

Stephen is an expert in human social behaviour. His two decades of experience in the field help clients design robust, effective and sustainable policies and practices for managing the complex social dynamics that affect their operations. Inter alia, he advises on how to address the social effects of conflict, violence, warfare and counter-insurgency, how to tackle online extremism and terrorism, and how to handle the post-conflict reintegration of combatants.

Work

Stephen has applied his academic skill-set to a wide range of research and consultancy work across both private and public sectors. His ground-breaking research on online extremism and misinformation - with a particular focus on Far Right and Islamic Jihadist material - has been published in leading peer-reviewed journals, while his research exploring the transition experiences of former UK armed forces personnel transitional experiences has informed the inquiries of parliamentary Defence Committees in both Australia and the UK.

Working for a specialist private sector client involved in high-risk operations world-wide, Stephen undertook a scoping exercise and literature review, which assessed the feasibility of using virtual ethnography and ethnographic approaches to help increase the social, political and economic effectiveness of mine clearance operations.

He has also trained doctoral students and Palestinian government officials in conflict resolution approaches and techniques, and is currently retained as a consultant and researcher by an Irish human rights organisation.

Background

Stephen received his doctorate in Social Anthropology from Queen’s University Belfast, where he remains a Visiting Scholar. He has since held a series of academic appointments at universities in the UK and overseas (QUB, Ulster, Dublin City, AAUP). For relaxation, he climbs hair-raising summits in the French Alps and abseils down high-rise buildings nearer to home.

Hermela Feredegne

Senior Consultant, ESG and Social Impact

Role

Hermela specializes in guiding clients in the creation, development and management of programmes that generate shared value across their businesses. She collaborates closely with stakeholders in order to assess the company’s current ESG performance against agreed reporting frameworks, enabling her clients to identify areas requiring improvement, then works with them to set indicators relevant to topical performance and broader sustainable development impacts (e.g., UN SDGs), underpinned by appropriate management systems.

Work

In Ethiopia, working for a multinational coffee producer, Hermela led the company’s sustainability team, which in collaboration with Germany’s International Development Agency (GIZ), has also designed and executed projects to improve the livelihoods of the company’s registered smallholder farmers and sustain the local environment. Through delivering this share of value to local stakeholders, the company has been able to adopt and report its social performance against internationally recognised ESG standards.

Background

Hermela has built up more than nine years of experience as a project manager, including marketing, media and extensive work on social impact projects in the food industry that yielded high returns for all stakeholders. She read Sociology at Addis Ababa University and speaks English and Amharic fluently.

Muthoni Koinange

Principal Consultant Stakeholder Engagement

Role

Muthoni examines her clients’ business operations to help them identify current and future risks in the social domain of ESG. Specialising in the particular social risks present in Africa, she untangles the complex web of rights and customs connected with communities affected by company operations and identifies the shared value that clients can create through more socially responsible business approaches. Her work enhances corporate valuations, drives beneficial social change and paves the way for responsible investment.

Work

In East Africa, working for an integrated oil company, Muthoni led efforts to ensure all local stakeholders had a platform to engage and communicate effectively with the company’s oilfield development project, enabling the company to avoid work stoppages and simultaneously align its front-line practices with its corporate sustainability, local content, human rights objectives.

In Kenya, working for a leading international development organisation, Muthoni fostered constructive dialogue with hard-to-reach local stakeholders affected by oil & gas exploration activities in a remote and impoverished region of the country. By empowering these communities to voice opinions and concerns and by navigating political institutional challenges - including resistance from vested interests and elites - her work generated mutual understanding and so reduced the conflict risks associated with the projects.

In Kenya, working for major highway contractors, Muthoni led stakeholder engagement processes and developed local content strategy for prestigious road-building projects, such as the Nairobi-Mombasa Expressway and the transformative Rift Valley Highway, ensuring that local community voices were heard and their needs were addressed, and that her clients could thereby comply with their legal obligations to government.

Background

Muthoni worked in Corporate Affairs (Africa Oil), in trade development (UK government) and founded an Africa-focused ESG consultancy (SP Advisory Ltd). She is an advisory board member at Daniola Corp (Canada) and offers her extensive ESG expertise to assist several industry associations, including the Kenya Private Sector Alliance (KEPSA), the Kenya Chamber of Mines, the Energy Council (UK) and the Institute of Sustainable Infrastructure (USA). She is a committed advocate for women in industry, not least as a member of the board of the Association of Women in Energy and Extractives in Kenya.

Rebecca Emerson-Keeler

Principal Consultant, Strategic Communications and MEL

Role

Rebecca advises, manages and evaluates client projects in fragile and conflict-affected settings across the globe. She specialises in the diverse fields of gender and inclusion, human rights, strategic communication, cybersecurity and technology impact, conflict ethics and peacebuilding, which have led to her employment on a wide range of consultancy projects, ranging from assessing cyber-security threats and resilience to building police capacity in numerous countries to embed gender, social inclusion and conflict-sensitivity into their everyday work.

Work

In Africa, working with an international development bank, Rebecca developed and executed the gender and communications aspects of a social risk management training course which equipped emerging African manufacturing, agricultural and energy businesses with the skills to evaluate and improve their social performance, thereby positioning them to attract ethical investment, sustainability certifications and foreign customers. Rebecca has also evaluated efforts to improve climate resilience and drive inclusive peace through the African league and other multilaterals for a range of clients.

Rebecca is experienced in designing monitoring, evaluation, research and learning methodologies and specialises in complex systems and behaviour change. Such work has included convening diverse stakeholders from the UK to the Netherlands to Iraq to Southeast Asia on issues such as National Security, Public Finance, Counter-Terrorism and Cybercrime. These projects have helped actors strategise their work, understand their respective change space and develop qualitative and quantitative metrics that help the client to demonstrate impact and understand realistic pathways to change.

Background

Rebecca has accumulated more than 20 years of experience in strategic planning, capacity building, project management and team leadership across work for the private sector, governments and civil society. Besides holding degrees in Ethics from St Andrew’s and Oxford universities, she speaks both French and Arabic proficiently. Much of her spare time is devoted to equine welfare around the world, as well as her own horses.

Tom Crofts

Principal Consultant, Political & Conflict

Role

Tom advises clients about the complex dynamics of the fragile, politically sensitive or conflict-affected settings in which they operate. Specialising in the nexus between conflict, security, governance and geopolitics, he utilises horizon scanning, forecasting, risk analysis and stakeholder mapping tools, as well as qualitative and quantitative data aggregation, to produce insightful and articulate research and analysis, which enables clients to understand and work sensitively on the socio-political challenges and opportunities that they face. As a professional Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning advisor, Tom assesses client project performance against social criteria, such as conflict sensitivity, gender, social inclusion and sustainability - besides impact - enabling clients to discern the direct and indirect, intended and unintended effects of their activities, and to design and implement sensitive system interventions that effect sustainable change.

Work

In Myanmar, as Political Counsellor at the British Embassy in the wake of the 2021 military coup, Tom’s political analyses and policy advice for the UK government were instrumental in shaping the UK and wider international response, including in the UN Security Council, securing unity among likeminded partners at a time of tension. Later, as an independent researcher, Tom and his team analysed the post-coup political environment, enabling a European organisation to engage effectively with democratic political actors in the country in the face of government repression. In South East Asia, working for a company contracted to the UK government’s International Security Fund, Tom’s in-depth analysis of non-traditional threats to UK national security - including climate, conflict, crime, terrorism, state threats, disinformation and authoritarianism - reshaped the UK’s approach to conflict, stabilisation and security in the region.

Background

Tom worked as a British diplomat for more than twenty years, specialising in peace-building, conflict prevention, democracy, elections, governance, human rights and security in conflict-affected states. His postings included Political Counsellor in Myanmar, Second Secretary Political in Afghanistan - where he learnt to speak Dari - and roles focused on Somalia, Syria, Lebanon and Nepal. Aside from diplomacy, Tom is also an accomplished rock musician, playing acoustic, rhythm and lead guitar across hard rock, indie and folk genres.

Dr Alex Channer

Principal Consultant, Human Rights

Role

Alex conducts risk assessments, due diligence and training covering the whole spectrum of human rights, especially modern slavery, forced labour, child labour, ethical recruitment and equality & diversity. Drawing on more than two decades of expertise, she develops tools and provides thoughtful and balanced advice that enables clients to embed responsible recruitment and employment practices across their supply chains.

Work

In West Africa, working for an international certification body, Alex developed a human rights due diligence toolkit for cocoa co-operatives and mining associations. The toolkit included self-assessments, training materials and guidance, empowering users to mitigate child labour and forced labour risks and to promote equal recognition and participation of women.

In the UK, as part of the Stronger Together alliance, Alex regularly delivers training on modern slavery due diligence for suppliers and labour providers in food and beverage supply chains. These workshops equip both managers and supervisors, and recruitment consultants with the risk management tools to prevent forced labour and promote ethical recruitment and decent work.

In the UK and North Africa, working for a global energy company, Alex conducted a modern slavery risk assessment as part of a wider human rights performance review. Her work informed a five-year plan to improve risk management of forced labour in company operations and supply chains.

Background

Besides working in political communications, as a university lecturer and as a front-line human rights campaigner (Kosovo), Alex formerly headed the human rights practice at a global risk intelligence company (Verisk Maplecroft), advising global corporations in the food and beverages, information technology and extractives sectors. She received her doctorate in Political Science from the University of Pennsylvania and is a qualified SA8000 social auditor. Alex is also a well-known translator of Kosovar (Albanian) literary works into English.

Chris B

Director of Research

Role

Chris manages discreet and open-source intelligence gathering and analysis activities, and conducts risk assessments, which develop a comprehensive understanding of our clients’ socio-political settings and weigh the risks associated with them. He also facilitates negotiations between key stakeholders in fragile and conflict-affected settings, including local communities, rebel factions, business leaders, labour unions, gangs and governments. He engages with all parties, monitors and mediates contested issues and shapes and guides the processes that help transform incipient or actual conflict into sustainable peace.

Work

In Russia, Nigeria, Mexico and Italy, working for various household-name corporations, Chris’s incisive socio-political risk assessments empowered clients to halt corrupt practices, instigate conflict-sensitive business operations and repair damaged community relations, restoring business profitability and rebuilding corporate reputations. In East Africa, working for an international agricultural supplier, Chris contributed to a combined human rights and security risk assessment that enabled the company to map a path out of a relentless socio-political quagmire that was draining its value chain, eroding its product certification and preventing sales to worried Western retailers.

Background

Before joining Minerva, Chris worked as a risk assessor in the oil industry, as a journalist for various reputable media organisations and as a civil servant. His degree in History & Economics was followed by postgraduate qualifications in Conflict & Development and Environment.

Rob Palfrey

Managing Director

Role
Rob is Minerva SRM’s founder and Managing Director. He sets strategic direction, leads business development, engages internationally with clients and partners and drives company performance. Whenever feasible, Rob also grabs the opportunity personally to lead or participate in project work.

Establishing Minerva, pioneering methodology

Recognising that businesses operating in challenging socio-political locations often struggled to engage effectively with local stakeholders and sometimes inadvertently triggered or exacerbated conflict, Rob established Minerva in 2014, with the goal of empowering clients to better manage such situations. Drawing on their experiences shaping socio-political outcomes in Afghanistan and other conflict-affected states, Rob and the team developed a social risk management methodology based on complex adaptive systems thinking, which enabled clients clearly to comprehend, and see how to manage, the dynamic interactions and important details in the socio-political settings in which they operated. As ESG performance frameworks have evolved, Rob and the team have developed the company’s methodology to meet clients’ current and emerging needs. Rob’s passion remains finding ways to transform actual and incipient conflict situations constructively for clients, and in the power of complexity thinking frameworks to do this.

Project work

While focused largely on corporate strategy and business development, Rob continues to lead and participate in Minerva projects whenever he can, to which he brings his wide experience of operations and programme management and aptitude for cross-cultural communication. In this capacity, he has been involved in social risk assessments in East Africa’s agriculture and energy sectors, strategy development for a Swiss - based foundation campaigning against child labour, and training in social risk management for African and Asian SMEs financed by the UK’s international development bank (CDC/BII).

Background

Rob has more than 25 years of exemplary regular and reserve service in the British Army, much of it focused on stabilisation and counter - insurgency environments. He commanded his company on deployment in Kenya and in Helmand province, Afghanistan, where he pioneered a successful approach to mentoring and training an Afghan National Army battalion engaged in regular combat operations. Rob is currently retained as a civilian expert on conflict by the UK government’s Stabilisation  Unit. As a director of Human Rights at Sea International, he supported a management buy - out of the company to create a sustainable, socially - purposed business providing human rights services in the marine environment. Rob is a certified International Conflict Negotiator and Peacemaker. He holds a Master’s degree in Social and Global Justice, a Diploma in Management and a Postgraduate Certificate in Conflict Resolution. In 2013, he was awarded the US Meritorious Service Medal for his work in Afghanistan.