Achim Constantin
Associate
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Achim is a hydrogeologist and environmental expert with over 20 years of experience across Europe and Latin America, advising governments, international organisations, and private companies on responsible mining, sustainability standards, environmental risk assessment, contaminated site remediation, and the management of mining and petroleum liabilities.
He has shaped environmental policy at the highest levels, advising Peru's Ministry of Environment on national contaminated site management systems and Colombia's Ministry of Environment on its landmark National Law on Environmental Liabilities. As Director of the MinSus project, a German cooperation project between BGR and UN ECLAC, he coordinated strategic advisory services on sustainable mining to six Andean governments. He has also contributed to international standardisation processes, including the development of an ISO standard on mining legacies within ISO TC82 Mining.
Achim combines strong analytical skills with hands-on field experience and fluency in German, Spanish, and English, making him a uniquely effective bridge between scientific expertise, regulatory frameworks, and practical negotiation in complex, multicultural environments.
Alice Fabre
Associate
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Alice is a senior expert in strategic policy and negotiation, with over 20 years’ global experience in healthcare, investment banking and digital transformation.
Alice brings public and private sector experience from the UK, Europe, and Asia, having established and grown high-impact consulting teams in multiple sectors. In healthcare, she structured and led a wide range of complex policy and advocacy projects for the NHS, trade associations, patient organisations, pharmaceutical and med-tech companies. She was also closely involved with negotiations between the pharmaceutical industry and UK government.
In the UK, Alice supports Negotient’s sector-wide projects and policy work. She brings diverse stakeholders together to navigate challenging policy scenarios and find innovative, consensus-based solutions.
Alistair Watson
Associate
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Alistair is a senior petroleum and mining industry fiscal expert, with experience in over thirty countries.
Alistair has worked as an extractive industry expert with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank, participating in and leading missions to provide technical assistance to a wide range of developing county governments on petroleum and mining fiscal policy, reporting to Ministerial level. He was previously a commercial director in Baker Hughes Reservoir Development Services, involved in designing and negotiating innovative commercial terms under which Baker Hughes shared risk and reward with clients. He started his career in Australia as a chartered accountant, auditor, and management consultant.
Alistair’s expertise includes fiscal regime design for petroleum and mining, economic modeling, negotiation support, institutional and regulatory reform, and capacity building. He is passionate about helping developing countries realize as much benefit as possible from their natural resources.
Carol Daniels
Associate
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Carol is a senior organisational development consultant for transformational change.
Carol has over 20 years’ experience consulting in Europe, North America, North Africa, and Asia. She has worked with a broad range of organisations in the public and private sectors, including government departments, the NHS, banking and financial services, extractive industries, pharmaceuticals, construction, manufacturing, charities, higher education, and telecommunications.
Carol helps organisations learn lessons from past negotiations. She brings clarity and rigour to data collection, works closely with the client to interpret and make sense of information, and facilitates capability development.
Professor Carole Longson MBE
Associate
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Carole has a 30-year Executive and Board career in life sciences and is a respected international leader in health technology assessment.
After a career in drug discovery at GSK, she pioneered the development of NICE’s HTA programs as an Executive Director for 18 years before serving as Chief Scientific Officer at the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry. She is former President of Health Technology Assessment International, was on the Exec Committee of the European Network in HTA and has served on Scientific Advisory Committees at the European Commission and the WHO. She is currently Vice Chair of the Medicines Discovery Catapult UK.
She is a life-long champion of collaboration between the public and private sectors, with deep experience of conflict resolution, formal and informal negotiation.
Charles Tarvin
Associate
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Charles is a senior advisor to public and private organisations seeking to design, negotiate and implement transformative change in complex environments.
Charles has 30 years' experience as an economist, consultant and civil servant. He has designed and led major transformation programmes across public sector delivery, including multi-billion pound infrastructure investments and operational changes. His experience spans central government, policing, transport, and local government, where he has consistently delivered complex change initiatives.
Charles combines his deep economic and policy expertise with practical delivery experience to help organisations realise lasting improvements in efficiency, effectiveness and return on investment. He has a proven track record in supporting leaders through complex challenges, building collaboration across organisations and securing substantial government funding.
Chris Brown
Founding Partner
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Chris is an expert in negotiation strategy and public policy.
A former senior civil servant, Chris brings over 20 years’ experience of Whitehall, international, and public-private negotiations. He was chief negotiator for the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry in negotiations with the NHS and UK Government for over £70 billion of medicine sales. An economist, he served as Deputy Director of the No10 Policy Unit, and at HM Treasury played a key role in the 2010 Spending Review, helping negotiate £81 billion of public spending reductions across departments. He brings extensive international experience, having negotiated on behalf of the UK as a senior diplomat and advised governments in North Africa and the Middle East.
Chris combines his negotiation expertise with a policymaker’s outlook – creative and collaborative, finding new ways to increase value for all parties and improve outcomes for the public.
Claudia Becker
Associate
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Claudia has 15 years’ experience in the private sector as well as in non-governmental and international cooperation contexts. She previously worked at the BMW Group, where she shaped sustainability strategies and embedded responsible sourcing practices into corporate decision-making processes. Her expertise spans critical minerals, informed by deep experience in the extractive sector and at the interface between business and communities in complex supply chains.
Claudia focuses on helping companies navigate social and environmental risks, strengthen their social license to operate, and design practical strategies that align business objectives with community expectations. She has led projects across Europe, Africa, and Asia, developing and implementing corporate strategies ranging from human rights due diligence to community engagement. Prior to joining the industry, she worked with municipal authorities on urban development and land governance in Cambodia.
Claudia brings strong facilitation skills and extensive experience engaging corporate teams, industry associations, public institutions, civil society actors, and local communities.
Dare Rolfe
Junior Consultant
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With a strong grounding in project finance and operational strategy, Dare has contributed to complex assignments in challenging political and regulatory environments.
Dare brings international experience across the US, UK, Myanmar, and Peru, supporting clients in sectors including mining, agriculture, renewable energy, and manufacturing. Prior to joining Negotient, Dare worked with Andaman Capital Partners in Myanmar, where he developed investor materials for major telecoms and technology acquisitions, and devised innovative capital-raising strategies for microfinance institutions. At LifeSystems in Peru, Dare helped shape regional economic development proposals and led stakeholder engagement for large-scale agricultural projects. His consulting experience also includes ESG policy analysis and client advisory work in the US and UK.
While at university he was the Head of Consulting at the pro-bono Playfair Consultancy Group. He advised small and medium-sized businesses, primarily in the food and beverage sector. He also served as a delegate to the Gateway KSA programme for young professionals in Saudi Arabia.
Dare holds an MA (Honours) in Economics and Management from the University of St Andrews.
David Gauke
Chair
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Negotient’s chair is David Gauke, a former Member of Parliament and Cabinet minister.
As Chief Secretary to the Treasury, David negotiated public spending settlements with Government departments and devolved administrations, led public sector pay policy, and engaged with policy issues including infrastructure investment, health reform, and defence procurement.
David is a City solicitor by background. He appears frequently in the media as a political commentator, is a columnist with the New Statesman and ConservativeHome, and edited the book The Case for the Centre Right.
Helen Llewellyn
Associate
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Helen is a policy and public affairs specialist with over 20 years’ experience in the private sector.
She held corporate affairs roles at British Airways and Lilly before becoming Head of Government Affairs at the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry. Since moving into independent consultancy 12 years ago, Helen has served clients including Novartis, ABPI, Shire, Smith + Nephew, Novo Nordisk, Merck and Peppy Health.
Helen is an expert at bringing together organisations with diverse and even competing interests to align around shared policy goals. She has worked extensively within trade associations, industry groups and campaigning coalitions.
Iain Steel
Founding Partner
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Iain is an expert in negotiation strategy, economics, and finance.
Iain has over 15 years’ experience in complex public-private negotiations and public policy. He has advised clients in Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Pacific on public-private negotiations for multibillion-dollar investments in energy, transport, agriculture, and extractives projects. Iain worked previously as a senior policy advisor at HM Treasury, where he led several high-profile policy reforms; as an expert for the International Monetary Fund on extractive industry tax and financial modelling; and as resident advisor to the Ministry of Finance of Liberia, where he advised on negotiations for concession agreements in agriculture and mining. He is also the founder of Econias, a consultancy that supports developing countries to negotiate better deals for mining projects.
Iain combines strong analytical rigour with clear communication, to help clients maximise value in negotiations.
James Dowling
Managing Partner
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James is an expert in UK public policy, government, and politics.
James led the public affairs and public policy practice of a major London consultancy, working with public companies and privately-owned clients across sectors including financial services, transport, and energy. He is a former UK government senior official and Special Adviser. As a civil servant, he worked at HM Treasury on tax policy and financial services. As a Special Adviser, he led on political relations and negotiations with No10 and HM Treasury on policy issues, public spending, legislative programmes and Parliamentary engagement. James is a regular media commentator, has written for the Telegraph and the Express, and often appears in broadcast media such as LBC, TalkTV and Sky News.
James combines political, media and government experience with commercial understanding. He advises clients on their public policy, political, and stakeholder context in the development and delivery of effective negotiation strategies.
Jason Olson
Associate
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Jason is a senior consultant and qualified attorney, with over 25 years’ experience providing high level advisory services in developing, transitional, emerging and frontier economies.
He focuses on understanding local political contexts to offer risk assessment and analysis around political uncertainty and conflict, as well as such technical aspects as public finance, legislatures, justice sector, policymaking and anti-corruption. He works closely on citizen activism and accountability, bringing rich insights in how to effectively engage and manage citizen needs when developing policy and negotiating deals. Jason works in some of the most challenging and complex environments and holds UK Government “SC” level clearance.
Jason is currently the Technical Director for FHI 360 UK and was the founder and managing director of Konung International until its acquisition by FHI 360 in 2020. He oversees large donor funded international development programme and provides technical support and advice to these programmes as well as directly to governments.
John Hall
Associate
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John provides strategic advice to public, private and not-for-profit organisations in the UK and internationally.
John is a former senior civil servant with 30 years’ experience in public spending, strategy, and public finances. He was strategy director in the Department of Health and director of economics at the regulator for NHS Foundation Trusts. As deputy director of public spending in HM Treasury he negotiated multiple spending reviews, infrastructure packages, and policy reforms.
John has a strong track record in building effective teams, coaching professionals to higher performance, and helping teams and organisations reorientate themselves to meet the challenges of the future.
Joshua Flax
Founding Partner & USA Practice Lead
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Josh is an expert in conflict management, negotiation analysis, and government-to-stakeholder regulatory negotiations.
At the US Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service for over 20 years, Josh led mediation teams tackling some of the most difficult public-policy negotiations between government and public stakeholder groups, including national rail negotiations, collective bargaining agreements between employers and unions in multiple sectors, and some of the largest Federal-Tribal negotiations. Josh completed his Federal service in 2023 as one of the two deputy directors leading the agency.
Josh also lectures on negotiation, collective bargaining, mediation, and Indigenous Peoples’ sustainable development at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, Harvard Business School, MIT, and Columbia University.
Dr Melvyn Weeks
Associate
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Melvyn is Associate Professor in Economics at the University of Cambridge, with over 30 years’ experience advising regulators and industry.
As Senior Economic Advisor to Ofgem, he has advised on cost benchmarking and evaluating efficiency across electricity companies for industry price reviews. He has advised Ofwat, Ofcom and others on incentive design and the welfare effects of policies. He advised Ofcom on the valuation of Radio Spectrum for 3G auctions and recently helped the Office of Road and Rail to quality assure data and evidence on the safety of smart motorways. He has recently established a specialist advisory at the interface of Generative AI and regulation, bringing together diverse disciplines to characterise sector sentiment using large language models.
His deep analytical credentials ensure that his advice to regulators and companies carries the highest authority.
Michelle Levene
Associate
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Michelle is a seasoned strategist with over 20 years of experience advising private, public, and non-profit organizations in Healthcare and Life Sciences.
She has worked with leading pharmaceutical companies—including big pharma (GSK, MSD, Novartis, Pfizer), mid-sized firms (Amgen, Boehringer Ingelheim, CSL), and clinical-stage biotech companies—as well as governments, investors, and non-profits. Having lived and worked across the US, sub-Saharan Africa, the South Pacific, and Europe, Michelle excels at leading cross-functional teams across cultures, languages, and time zones.
She helps organisations navigate complex business challenges while fostering productive negotiations and effective stakeholder communication.
Miranda Worthington
Director
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Miranda is an expert in public policy, strategy and negotiation.
As the Department of Health of Social Care’s Director for NHS Industrial Relations through the NHS strikes from 2022 to 2024, she was government’s lead policy official and chief negotiator, reaching settlements with unions representing striking workforces. Before this, Miranda held senior roles in HM Treasury, Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government and the Department for Education. She has very significant experience in complex and high-profile fiscal policy (such as income tax, welfare reform, and spending reviews). At the Ministry for Housing, she led government programmes related to community regeneration and housing investment.
Miranda excels in building strong teams, and in bringing clarity of thought and sound judgement to help clients solve complex problems.
Patrick Gorman
Associate
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Patrick is a mining engineer with over forty-five years of managerial, technical and project experience in a wide range of business, cultural and climatic environments and commodities.
Patrick has worked on more than 100 projects involving 20 commodities located in 35 countries. He has managed development programmes, pre-feasibility and bankable feasibility studies, conceptual evaluations, scoping and acquisition studies and provided advice for mining ministries and technical audits for mining project financing. He has hands-on experience in the formation, management, legal representation and business development of a range of exploration, mining, consulting and EPCM companies with offices in Australia, Canada, Chile and UK. He was an independent mining consultant working with the International Finance Corporation and has also worked with various Ministries of Mines primarily in Africa, Asia and the Middle East.
Patrick brings deep sector expertise to investor-State negotiations for large-scale mining projects.
Steve Hughes
Associate
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Steve is an economist and public policy analyst.
As a consultant, Steve has led Government evaluations on local growth funding and the criminal justice system, sector-specific economic impact assessments, and bespoke analysis to support Government engagement on policy areas including the voluntary scheme for branded medicines pricing and access, barriers to delivering digital infrastructure, and devolution of powers to local government. He was previously head of economic and social policy at the think tank Policy Exchange, an analyst in the banking services division of the Bank of England, an economist at the British Chambers of Commerce, and a House of Commons researcher on HM Treasury and Department for Work and Pensions policy.
Santiago Dondo
Associate
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Santiago is an expert in extractive industries, governance, and the Latin America region.
Santiago has worked in prominent roles in the mining industry across public sector, private sector, and multilateral organisations. He has advised governments in Argentina, Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Dominican Republic, and Panama. He was previously Undersecretary of Mining Policy in the Ministry of Energy and Mines in Argentina, Director for the LAC region for the Extractive Industry Transparency Initiative, and has led projects for the International Development Bank, the World Bank, and the Organization of America States.
Santiago is a qualified lawyer and holds a Master’s Degree in Mining Governance and Public Policies from the University of Queensland.
Stefanie Heerwig
Senior Consultant
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Stefanie is an expert in extractive‑industry economics and finance, strategic raw‑material management, and responsible sourcing. She brings over a decade of experience advising governments, international organisations, and global companies. Her work includes supporting public–private negotiations for major mining projects across Latin America, Asia, and Africa, underpinned by strong financial‑modelling capabilities and deep expertise in fiscal regimes.
At BMW Group, she served as Senior Expert for Raw Material Strategy & Risk Management, leading ESG‑driven due‑diligence processes, mining‑certification strategies, and global on‑site supplier engagements. She has also advised governments through IISD, GIZ, CONNEX, and ODI on mining‑tax reforms and tax‑audit strengthening. Stefanie is also a former ODI Fellow at the National Revenue Authority of Sierra Leone. She is fluent in French and Spanish.
Vicky Edwards
Chief Operating Officer
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Vicky is an expert in operations, business transformation, and scaling organisations across both public and private sectors. She has over 15 years’ experience leading teams, transforming processes, and driving change in complex environments. Vicky has advised and supported organisations in higher education, professional associations, and consultancy, helping them build resilient operations and align strategy with delivery.
She worked previously as Chief Operating Officer at MH&A, where she scaled operations and built a support services function; Head of Operations at UNSW, where she managed faculty-wide operations and transformation initiatives; and as Interim Director of Operations at the Inns of Court College of Advocacy, where she optimised financial planning, governance systems and integrated operational delivery. Earlier in her career, she held management roles at Imperial College London and UCL, supporting research and clinical education operations.
Vicky ensures the middle of a business runs seamlessly, ensuring cohesion across colleagues, operations, and strategy. She is passionate about building scalable systems and empowering teams that enable colleagues to focus on clients and deliver long-term impact.
Stuart Carroll
Senior Associate
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Stuart is a health economist, epidemiologist and public policy adviser with more than 22 years’ experience spanning government, industry, healthcare and academia.
He has worked at the highest levels of health policy and market access, including at Moderna, Sanofi and Biogen. At Moderna, he helped negotiate the UK Government’s landmark Strategic Partnership for pandemic preparedness. He advised the UK PM’s Vaccines Taskforce during the Covid-19 pandemic, leading work on vaccine deployment and procurement. He has led multiple vaccine and medicine tenders, and held responsibility as a local government Cabinet Member for negotiations and procurement, including joint commissioning with the NHS and DfE.
Stuart combines his deep technical expertise and extensive experience of government to help clients negotiate effectively at the intersection of biotechnology, healthcare, defence and national resilience. He has published more than 180 peer-reviewed papers, served on committees for the Scottish Medicines Consortium and NICE, and continues to advise on complex healthcare and public policy challenges. He is an Honorary Assistant Professor at Nottingham University.
Talya Lockman-Fine
Associate
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Talya has over ten years of experience advising senior government officials, leadership of multilateral organisations, and non-governmental organisations on strategy, policy, and programme design.
A lawyer by training, she has served as Chief Speechwriter to U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen; counsel at the International Finance Corporation; and a consultant at Dalberg, among other roles, and has lived and worked in Senegal, Liberia, Myanmar, and Rwanda.
Thomas Blanchard
Associate
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Tom is an economist with a background in public policy and development.
Tom was an ODI Fellow in the Tax Policy Unit of the Ministry of Finance, Ghana, where he worked on mining fiscal regime modelling and tax revenue forecasting. Prior to this, he worked for the World Bank’s Jobs Group in a programming role analysing structural transformation; as an economist for the Migration Advisory Committee (MAC), where he wrote chapters for reports commissioned by the Home Secretary; and as a consultant for the International Labour Organisation (ILO). Tom has a BA Economics from the University of Cambridge and a MSc in Specialised Economic Analysis from the Barcelona School of Economics.
Tom provides strong technical support by leveraging both quantitative and qualitative analysis, ensuring insightful and informed discussions.
Rob Jordan
Senior Adviser
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Rob was for nine years an Investment Director in an impact investment fund. Before that, he worked for seven years in HM Treasury as a senior policy adviser.
Rob focuses on structuring and financing solutions that work across public and private sectors, combining commercial discipline with policy realism.
Sir William Patey
Senior Adviser
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Sir William Patey was a senior British Diplomat until April 2012. He served as Ambassador to Afghanistan (2010-2012), to Saudi Arabia (2007-2010) to Iraq (2005-2006) and to Sudan (2002-2005). He was also Head of the Middle East Department at the Foreign and Commonwealth office from 1999-2002. He was also Director of the FCO Comprehensive Spending Review from 2006-7.
Since retiring from government service in 2012 he has become an international consultant and regular media commentator on Middle East affairs. He has been Chairman of Turquoise Mountain Trust since 2019 and became Chair of the Labour Middle East Council (LMEC) in March 2024. He was a member of a Challenge panel for the recent Defence Review Chaired by Lord George Roberston.
His previous positions include Non-Executive Director HSBC Bank Middle East (2012-2019) and Chairman of Swindon Town FC (2012-2013). He served as the PM’s Special Envoy for Aviation Security (2015).
He was honoured with a KCMG in 2009. He is an Honorary Fellow of Exeter University and Distinguished Fellow at Royal United Services Institute (RUSI). He was awarded a Doctor of Law (Honoris Causa) by the University of Dundee in July 2016.
Who we are
Our team has served at the highest levels of government and advised public and private sector leaders in the UK, USA, and globally.