About Us

The Next Generation Survey Building Tool from The Crowd Wisdom Project.

We collate wisdom and find harmony

Founded by a British activist lawyer, we are a non-profit organisation, trying to make the world a better place, one project at a time.

We believe that people are good. We believe that people want the best for their communities, for their workplaces and for their countries.

By using the best survey technology – Polis – through crowds, we collate wisdom and find harmony. The climate emergency demands that we all must make difficult compromises.

As an international team ourselves, we want to help decision-makers, anywhere in the world. No project is too small or too large. Our service is free for environmental groups, cost-price for community organisations and standard cost for companies

Our Mission

We solve contentious problems. We discover the best ideas within a crowd. Where there is division, we create consensus. We help environmental groups to save the planet.

Meet the team

Our team come from many backgrounds, disciplines and countries.

Andrew Gray

Andrew Gray

Founder & Director

Andrew is an experienced lawyer, practicing in England. Andrew founded his own law firm – Truth Legal. Unusually, Andrew has been involved in all of the main political parties in England, though he is not a member of any. Andrew runs a community podcast; founded an international NGO specialising in Myanmar; runs Immigration Lawyers Organisation; ran a debating organisation; runs an English language school in Tenerife; sat as a charity trustee; and created a number of successful businesses and campaigns, including the Harrogate District Consensus. Andrew blogs at www.andrew-gray.org and occasionally writes for a regional newspaper on political matters. Andrew has a degree in Economics, Government, and Political Philosophy.

Ann Page

Ann Page

Advisor

Ann Page, a Top 100 lawyer of the year (2002/3) has had a successful in-house 28-year career, working mainly in the financial sector. In fact, she trained in-house at Citibank to become a solicitor. Her longest in-house post was also her last one – Head of Legal for The Co-operative Bank plc (13½ years).

She switched from being a business lawyer in industry to a non-practising solicitor who teaches and coaches on business subjects in 2003.  Since then, Ann has trained 7500+ lawyers on numerous business proficiencies including leadership, management and interpersonal power skills.

Ann has been active in various professional committees including the Association of Women Solicitors, Law Society Membership Committee and was Chair of the Law Society Commerce & Industry Group initiating six firsts for the Group, Head of Business Affairs Institute of Paralegals. Currently she is Treasurer of the Yorkshire Sole Practitioner’s Group, a member of the Professional Speaking Association, Professional Speaking Academy, Women in Law and Leeds Law Society.

She has extensive knowledge of the issues facing legal professionals and business owners. Ann has written three books and her latest ‘Business skills? Don’t be daft I am a lawyer! is endorsed by three Managing Partners. It contains practical advice and exercises to those setting up in business or running their own legal practice or department. 29 legal business owners share their stories of forging their own path including their highs and lows.

Mike Jerome

Mike Jerome

Advisor

Mike lives at the intersection between Software Engineering and Customer Success, looking after startup customers at AWS (Amazon Web Services). Previously, Mike led teams at IBM, Hallmark, Heroku, Salesforce and FinancialForce.

You’ll often find Mike walking his daughter to school or his son to football practice. Left to his own devices, he’ll order a black Americano while reading up on a new web framework.

Andrew Paice

Andrew Paice

Polis Consultant

Andy Paice is a participatory democracy facilitator, convener and consultant based in London. His interest in facilitating group conversations began with involvement in democracy campaigns in the early 2010s. Experiences of collective breakthroughs in group discussions ignited a desire to learn more about facilitation and how communities and societies come to mutually beneficial outcomes. This interest set him off on a career path which has included designing a series of over 40 community assemblies in the London Borough of Newham, numerous Citizens’ Assemblies and juries on Climate Change and deliberative workshops. Andy has been working with Polis since 2019 in multiple uses with local government and he recently advised the set up of 5 nationwide Polis conversations for the Austrian Climate Assembly. When he’s not doing democracy activities he enjoys swimming, cycling and gardening.
paul thistlewaite

Paul Thistlethwaite

Polis Consultant

Paul is an experienced group and process facilitator and passionate advocate for sustainability and participatory democracy, with 20 years’ experience of driving sustainability in the construction industry. As a freelance consultant he has helped clients run large online events and public policy assemblies. He specialises in designing bespoke deliberative workshops where he employs a wide range of deliberative and digital engagement methods to maximise participation and inclusion. While supporting initiatives like Trust the People, TalkShop and in founding Thinking Box he has run over 200 community and business events.

Blog contributors

Michal Horský

Contributor

theodore keloglou

Theodore Keloglou

Contributor

Trusted By These Forward Thinking Organisations

  • Demdis
  • Whole Systems Partnership
  • Truth Legal
  • Knaresborough Voice
  • Harrogate Informer
  • University of Helsinki