I spent time in 2015-16 travelling to Portland, Oregon to help a passionate and courageous group of people strategise about how they were going to bring their new organisation into being. The result is Ocean Outcomes: an organisation dedicated to helping communities and the seafood industry improve the sustainability of wild fisheries.

Not only are wild fisheries front and centre in this new organisation’s sights, but some of the wildest places on the Pacific Rim are the focal point of their work. These inspiring men and women go to some of the wilder places on the planet to help people improve the long-term viability of their very livelihoods. I’m inspired and in awe of the work they do every day.

So, when they asked me to join their Advisory Board, of course I said yes! I was honoured to lend my support, expertise and knowledge to the future growth of this exciting organisation. I helped them develop their original business model and generate ideas for their longer-term vision and culture, their underlying financial strategy and different options for pricing client services. I also helped them explore strategies for rapid testing of potential new services and learning from their evaluations to adapt or move-on in short timeframes.

Five years later the organisation has gone from strength to strength, effectively from start-up mode to an evolving and maturing organisation with a new CEO and a formal Board of Directors: it’s all getting quite grown up. Their challenge as time goes on is to stay connected with the essence of what makes them unique and that’s something about being willing to keep going to those hard, wild places and keep working with people and communities to do impactful work to help solve some very tricky sustainability and fishery community issues.

“Wild things, you make my heart sing!”