Wellspring Consulting Ltd

Lucy’s expertise and experience was invaluable in our review of governance and risk management. Her outside perspective and knowledge of a wide range of other organisations helped us quickly identify areas for improvement and practical solutions. Her open and friendly style rapidly gained the trust and respect of everyone she worked with and I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend her services to organisations wanting to improve their governance.

"I have had the pleasure of working with Lucy in her position as governance adviser on a non-profit board on which I serve as a trustee. Lucy is without exception one of the most the efficient, effective and charming people I have worked with in this and similar functions."

"The last year has seen significant progress in the effectiveness of the Board. Improvements to the quality of board papers, as well as the fact that papers are shared well in advance of meetings, has resulted in richer and more meaningful discussions of the trust's strategy, plans and progress"

"I first met Lucy as a director of a MAT for which she was a consultant. I was impressed with her ability to make the technical aspects of MAT Governance clearly understandable to all of us involved with the Academy’s schools. I was struck by her attention to detail and her ability to make what could be considered to some, quite complicated issues , clearly understandable to us so that we have been able to conduct the Academy’s business efficiently."

I worked alongside Lucy in Rwanda as part of Tony Blair's Africa Governance Initiative, where we provided strategic advice to the President and Prime Minister and capacity building support to their senior officials. Lucy was highly professional and widely respected for both her technical expertise and her personable approach to working alongside national staff. Her ability to adapt her advice according to her audience was particularly evident; she was as effective providing strategic advice to the President and his ministers as she was building the skills and confidence of lower capacity civil servants. Lucy's dedication and diligence, combined with her astute understanding of governance constraints, resulted in real progress in a short space of time, which in turn built the trust and confidence of our counterparts.

Overall I found Lucy to be a very hard-working, committed and reliable colleague who threw herself into a job in very tough working conditions and with some very trying adversaries/colleagues in Afghan government. The job routinely required 12 plus hour days and we work six days a week here and have relatively little freedom of movement, so anyone who can deliver good work in this kind of place is pretty resilient and able. The job chiefly involved coordinating with lots of other people in the international community, different ministries and agencies to ensure that the policies for various different governance sectors (eg public financial management, local government, anti-corruption, justice) were delivered in good shape and on time.

She was good fun to work with, intelligent and driven.

Lucy Carter (NB this was my old name - I got married recently!) has previously worked with us over several years on a number of separate, yet related projects intended to set out the complex accountabilities and relationships of the three lead Government departments and their relevant agencies involved in the delivery of learning and skills provision for offenders.

We appreciated and valued Lucy’s work. She helped to establish and instil a sense of collaborative working across a number of organisations, whose priorities were often competing and sometimes contradictory, at a time when this was missing. We found Lucy to be a most effective, reliable and amiable consultant; to us, she felt more part of the team than someone simply fulfilling a contract.

Lucy has lead a Governance Review for the Society, looking at our decision-making processes, committee structure and behaviours during governance meetings. Her style is incredibly energetic and enthusiastic such that she’s made governance absolutely fascinating! The Executive Committee of trustees have taken on board all her recommendations and now we have a truly engaged group of trustees who all contribute significantly in our meetings which focus much more on strategic and governance-level discussion points and decisions. Even when critical, Lucy delivers her results in a positive and supportive way. I’d recommend Lucy’s expertise to anyone considering an independent assessment of their governance structures and processes.