Harry Hobson is Founder and Director of the Neighbourly Lab. He's obsessed by how evidence can improve social outcomes for people and stop money being wasted. He has a particular interest in social infrastructure and how people use technology in their lives. 

 

As a strategic consultant and social entrepreneur, he continues to be an Associate Partner at Stripe Partners, was Founder of Common Everybody (a platform to connect KS2 school-children in different countries to promote empathy and citizenship), and Partner at What If Innovation (the UK’s largest corporate innovation firm). Harry’s past working life includes stops at the Economist Intelligence Unit and Spectrum Strategy Consultants. He is also father, beekeeper, paddle-boarder. Harry holds MA degrees from Cambridge and SOAS London.
 

harry@neighbourlylab.com 

Qamar Zaman is Co-Founder, Chief Economist and Director of Data and Insights at the Neighbourly Lab. He’s interested in understanding and measuring difficult to measure concepts, and at the Lab he thinks about how we can generate and join together signals on social connectedness.  

 

As the former Chief Economist and Head of Data and Behavioural Science at the Banking Standards Board he built and led what has become the largest exercise of its kind globally to assess culture and behaviour in financial institutions. Qamar spent the first half of his career at Oliver Wyman, and at the Financial Services Authority, as part of which he was also the principal Economic Advisor to the European Banking Authority in the initial years of the financial crisis. He is also an (aspiring) short story writer. Qamar holds Masters degrees from Oxford and McGill.

 

qamar@neighbourlylab.com 

Marnie Freeman is Head of the Co-Design Practice and Qualitative Research at Neighbourly Lab. She thinks about how the Lab can build out and use participatory and ethnographic methods to address questions around community cohesion and reducing isolation.

 

She has 20 years of experience in Participatory Research Design, Community Development and Qualitative Project Delivery and Evaluation, working for the UN, local councils, NGOs, charities and for commercial organisations. Her expertise lies in working with children, young people, families and refugee communities. She also loves: her boys, lake swimming and being upside down. Marnie’s academic background is in Social Anthropology and her MSc from SOAS London is in the Political Economy of Violence, Conflict and Development.

 

marnie@neighbourlylab.com

Priya Banati brings a career’s worth of experience in championing collaboration through people-centered design. At the Neighbourly Lab, she applies this expertise towards building collaborative models for connectedness that support work and well-being across communities.  Priya also runs Common Ground Design. 

 

Priya spent the first half of her career at Accenture where she built and nurtured the Accenture Communities program - a service that mobilised leaders and diverse teams to successfully ideate and innovate around key business issues. She recently served as the Inclusive Innovation Network lead at Camden Council. She is also the mother of a delightful boy and an aspiring polyglot. Priya holds a Bachelors in Architecture, an MSc in Consultancy Management, and an MRes in Design Research from the Royal College of Art.

priya@neighbourlylab.com

Emma Stockdale is a part-time Researcher at the Neighbourly Lab. She works largely on the creation of an evidence store to better understand what research to date tells us about ‘what works’ for generating and sustaining social connectedness, and how this may inform the Lab’s direction.

 

Emma is currently working towards her PhD in behavioural finance at King’s College London having previously worked in communication and change management. She holds an MSc in Occupational Psychology.  When not working, Emma can be found attempting an ambitious puzzle or watching a film (and then rapidly forgetting she’s seen it).

 

emma.stockdale@kcl.ac.uk

Hannah Rogers is a Junior Researcher at the Neighbourly Lab. She mostly focuses on the background literature and data on social connectedness and enjoys getting into the ‘on the ground’ qualitative side of the research we do.

 

Hannah recently finished her master’s in International Law and International Relations at the University of Bristol, after having done her undergraduate degree in Geography. Her main interests are in conflict studies, international security and climate change. Outside of work and study, she loves cooking challenging and tasty veggie meals, being active, going on walks with her dog, and watching documentaries.