Changemaker Q&A

The ocean can feel distant from everyday life, particularly if you don't live near the coast. Yet every second breath we take is made possible by the ocean, and its health shapes everything from our climate and food systems to weather patterns and biodiversity. Marine biologist and science communicator Andrew Lewin has spent more than a decade helping people understand why protecting the ocean...

The fashion industry sits at the intersection of some of today's most pressing social and environmental challenges, from textile waste and microplastic pollution to toxic chemical exposure and unsustainable consumption patterns. Yet for many people, sustainability can feel overwhelming, expensive, or simply out of reach. Lacey Cadieux-McLean, founder of Rhubaia , is working to change that. Dra...

What happens when millions of people need mental health support, but the formal healthcare system simply can’t keep up? This conversation explores the growing gap between mental health awareness and actual care, and why the future of wellbeing may depend less on professionals alone and more on rebuilding cultures of community support, empathy, and collective care. Drawing from his own lived experi...

What would change if we designed our systems around the people who actually use them, rather than treating people as an afterthought? Dr Heena Sinha Cheung joins me to explore a people-centred approach to systems change grounded in prevention, lived experience and community knowledge. Drawing on her work across child safety, disability, responsible AI, social entrepreneurship and independent polit...

What if the way we pursue social change sometimes reproduces the same cultures of urgency, extraction and endless growth we're trying to transform? Lucy Richards, Co-Founder of The Regenerative Leader, joins me to explore what regenerative leadership can teach us about creating change differently. Drawing on lessons from regenerative practice, mindfulness, nature and two decades working across men...

What does it actually mean to build a nonviolent world — and can we get there through punishment, shame and dehumanisation? Hala Abdelnour, founder and CEO of the Institute of Non-Violence, joins me for a wide-ranging conversation about violence, power, accountability and what genuine transformation requires. Drawing on decades of experience across psychology, social work, family violence, addicti...

What does it really take to lead in the nonprofit and social impact sector? Anthony Silard joins Changemaker Q&A to unpack the emotional realities of leadership in spaces built around service, care, and social mission. Drawing on decades of experience across nonprofit leadership, global education, research, and executive development, Anthony explores why leadership in the social sector is fund...

Many of us spend years pursuing goals we rarely stop to question. A relationship, marriage, children, career milestones, home ownership — the traditional markers of success can become so deeply embedded in our culture that it becomes difficult to distinguish what we genuinely want from what we've been taught to want. Drawing on her TEDx talk, The Silent Epidemic of Modern Singlehood , Aimee Ba...

What happens to the sets, props, displays, and installations once the cameras stop rolling or the event wraps up? In this episode of Changemaker Q&A, Joe and Tin from Used Creative unpack the hidden waste problem inside the creative industries and share how they are building a more circular alternative. Drawing on backgrounds in design, branding, media, events, and creative production, they ex...

What happens when someone leaves their role as a pastor for the FBI and discovers that both roles, in very different ways, are about serving people in moments of crisis? Eric Robinson shares the story of his transition from Baptist pastor to FBI agent, reflecting on what that shift taught him about calling, stress, and where he felt most able to make a difference. Along the way, we explore the hum...

This will be my last solo-episode for some time, while I focus on other more impactful projects! After months of juggling multiple jobs, running live training programs, leading volunteer initiatives, and trying to keep the Humanitarian Changemakers Network moving forward, I found myself confronting a difficult reality: something had to give. This isn't simply an announcement about taking a bre...

What happens when someone who was never “supposed” to succeed in traditional education ends up building a method that helps students leap multiple grade levels in literacy? Russell shares his unlikely journey from struggling with severe dyslexia to law school, government-backed research, and a writing-first framework that’s helped students dramatically improve reading and writing outcomes in month...

Skip the HCN Weekly Brief: 6:20 How do we create a better future if we struggle to imagine one? Reflecting on the conversations that emerged during a week-long Post-Growth Futures series, this episode explores one of the biggest challenges facing changemakers today: our collective crisis of imagination. Rather than treating the future as a single destination waiting to unfold, the discussion refra...

Resilience isn’t about pretending things don’t hurt — it’s about learning how to keep moving when they do. Michael shares how his journey from growing up in Miami to serving in the Air Force shaped his mindset, and why anime storytelling became the most powerful tool he’s found for growth and leadership. The conversation explores how narrative can cut through our defences, why “behaviours over fee...

A growing number of people feel caught between the desire to build meaningful lives and the economic realities of surviving within systems that often reward status, productivity, and profit over contribution and care. Inspired by Moral Ambition and reflections on work, vocation, and systems change, this episode explores what it actually means to direct our ambition toward making the world better,...

What if the most powerful lever for systemic change isn’t strategy — but consciousness? Martin shares his journey from early corporate success and burnout to becoming a leadership coach focused on inner transformation. Together, we explore how conditioning, ego, fear, and inherited patterns shape the way leaders show up — and how shifting those patterns can ripple outward into organisations, polit...

A listener question sparked today’s discussion about the relationship between the internet, culture, and societal transformation. While social media and online platforms appear to accelerate cultural change at unprecedented speed, this episode explores whether what we are witnessing is genuine transformation or simply faster-moving opinions and visibility. Drawing on sociology, systems thinking, a...

A multi-passionate journey from music engineering and early internet tech to circus life, esoteric teaching, and finally a plant-centred practice in Damanhur—an intentional community in northern Italy described as “Hogwarts meets Oz”—opens into a surprising toolkit for changemakers. This conversation with plant advocate Tigrilla explores how plants can shift the way we understand purpose (by recog...

Skip the HCN Weekly Brief: 4:56 After 100 episodes of Changemaker Q&A, one thing has become clear: changemaking is rarely linear, tidy, or predictable. From grassroots activists and nonprofit founders to artists, educators, researchers, and entrepreneurs, this milestone episode reflects on the biggest lessons that have emerged across years of conversations about systems change, leadership, sto...

Service often gets framed as something people do on the side, yet this episode shows what happens when service becomes a sustained practice—built into systems, relationships, and everyday leadership. Heidi shares the story behind founding Spiritual Care at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, after personal loss reshaped her understanding of what families need in moments of trauma. The conversation ex...

Skip the HCN Weekly Brief: 9:05 Change doesn’t just happen because we have the right strategy, the right tools, or even the right intentions. It happens through relationships—and relationships are built on trust. This conversation explores the idea that all social change moves at the speed of trust, unpacking what that means across everything from interpersonal relationships to organisations, fund...

Actor-turned-communication-expert Dominic Colenso joins Changemaker Q&A to unpack why communication is not a “nice-to-have” for social change, but a core capability—especially when your work involves complex ideas, competing priorities, or audiences who are not already convinced. Drawing on his background as a professional actor and his later work coaching leaders, founders, and teams, Dominic...

Skip the HCN Weekly Brief: 5:59 What’s the difference between creating impact and creating change—and why does it matter? This episode explores a distinction that often gets overlooked in the social impact space: the difference between improving people’s lives in the present and transforming the systems that shape those lives. Through a simple but powerful analogy, we unpack why both roles are ess...

Live events look effortless from the crowd, but behind every stage, schedule, and security plan sits an intense working environment built on long hours, high stakes, and a freelance culture that can make wellbeing feel like an afterthought. In this conversation, Nika shares how the pandemic exposed the mental health crisis many event professionals were already carrying, and how that experience hel...

Skip the HCN Weekly Brief - 3:45. This episode responds to a listener question from a practitioner stepping into academic research and feeling overwhelmed by theory of change, explanatory change theory, and the broader field of social change research. It unpacks the difference between a practical theory of change and a deeper explanatory change theory, explains why research philosophy matters so m...