About Us
How we work
Some consultants come in, disrupt things, tell you what to do and then disappear off the pitch. Intelligent Emotion aren’t like that – we understand your starting point, bring positive provocation and then come up with a plan of action that we help you to implement. We feel like an extension of our clients’ teams, and we have a lasting impact with what we do.
We spend a lot of time working with clients on their 'how' and we practise what we preach. You will feel the positive impact of our behaviours because they run deep in each one of us and allow us to grow long and sustainable partnerships with our clients.
Who we are
Intelligent Emotion is run by co-founders, Anth Burrows and Oliver Strong. They work with a trusted team of associates collectively specialising in engagement, internal communications, change, leadership, facilitation, and coaching. We are purposely boutique and what makes us different is that Anth, Ollie and their senior team are actively involved in all the work we take on.
ANTH BURROWSManaging Partner
Anth is Co-Founder and Managing Partner of Intelligent Emotion and is passionate about people and helping them fulfil their potential. He is obsessed with communication and improving things. He loves language and speaks French, Spanish and Italian having studied them at Durham University and after living abroad in South America and Spain amongst other places.
He has worked in financial services for over 17 years and is not your typical financial services person. Anth is creative, dynamic and likes to push boundaries. He loves fashion and counts personal styling among his varied hobbies.
He has worked as Group Head of Internal Communications and Engagement in a number of prestigious financial services companies and his career highlights to date have been leading RSA Insurance to reach world-class levels of engagement in just 3 years and helping Allied Irish Bank deliver one of the biggest increases in engagement over two years of any company in Europe. He lives in Barcelona with his Spanish partner.
OLIVER STRONGManaging Partner
Ollie is the Co-Founder and a Managing Partner of Intelligent Emotion with a passion for helping organisations from all sectors shift internal communications and engagement firmly into the role of critical strategic enabler. He loves to get the creative mind buzzing – generally helped by several dozen skinny lattes.
With nearly 20 years’ experience in internal communications, change communications, engagement, investor relations, employer branding and external communications, Oliver has been trusted advisor to FTSE 100 and FTSE 250 executives, from travel, to property, to automotive and financial services. He has led global communications teams and has picked up awards along the way, most notably the overall CIPD Winners Award while leading the global internal communications and engagement function at RSA Insurance.
Oliver has a BA in Modern History from Oxford University and was drawn to communications through research for his Masters dissertation at Durham University. He lives with his growing tribe in Cambridge and to unwind can be found in his art studio doing battle with oils.
ALISON QUESTSenior Consultant
Alison has over 20 years’ of experience in employee engagement and leadership communications, gained in global in-house roles for large multinational companies such as Shell, Pfizer and Hertz. She consults at a senior level, is a qualified professional business coach and accredited communications trainer. She focuses on outcomes and developing shared objectives across strategy, brand, marketing and HR.
NINA CALLARDAssociate Consultant
Nina previously worked in internal communications and engagement leadership roles for 12 years at Cancer Research, with a focus on enabling thriving cultures and a commitment to placing people at the heart of this. This comes through a breadth of experience including leading the culture and communications elements of significant change programmes, developing and implementing colleague engagement and internal communications strategies, and establishing and embedding organisational values and strategic narratives.
CHARLIE MIDDLETONConsultant
Charlie started her career in advertising over 20 years ago, where she first learned the power of a story well told and the skill of juggling multiple projects. When curiosity got the better of her, she jumped over the fence to work client-side for RSA Insurance, where she worked as Head of Internal Communications Channels. She believes the ability to listen well holds the key to engagement and is passionate about helping organisations to connect their people through the power of personal storytelling.
LAUREN SPELLERAssociate Consultant
Lauren has worked in global internal communications and employee engagement roles in a number of large businesses including RSA, AIB and HSBC. She is progressive, outcomes-focused and brilliant at getting things done in a way that feels seamless and delivers lasting results
CAMILLA LEYLANDOps and Administration
Camilla is a former journalist, conference organiser and yoga teacher who is now turning her many talents to supporting the Intelligent Emotion team.
Camilla looks after Intelligent Emotion’s bookkeeping, invoicing and expenses and she also provides hands on project support where required with things like event logistics. Camilla has a first-class Masters’ degree in Near and Middle Eastern Studies from SOAS.
Why the name Intelligent Emotion?
Well, we’re here to help you create rational understanding of your business strategy and change agenda amongst your employees, but we also see emotion as key to successful implementation – tapping into the right side of the brain. Many people see emotion as out of place in business, but we feel differently.
Used intelligently, emotion is vital as it unlocks creativity and innovation – two critical attributes that can help your company differentiate itself and outperform the competition. You can’t deliver change just by telling people what it is. However, you can deliver a strategy by ensuring that your people get it both rationally and emotionally – by creating a powerful connection with them that drives ownership, unblocks barriers and inspires them. This is our mission for our clients. This is our passion.