About
Built around the work.
Not the headcount.
x Impact Studio was built around a simple idea:
Important work deserves experienced people, focused attention and enough freedom to build the right answer rather than sell a predetermined service.
Led by
Colman Chamberlain
x Impact stays deliberately small at the centre. Every engagement is led directly by Colman, with the work determining what other perspectives, capabilities or expertise it needs.
We work with leaders across businesses, nonprofits, foundations and family offices, usually when something important needs to be figured out, built or made to work.
Colman on LinkedIn A note for family offices and foundations
Editor note — hidden on the live site.
BIOGRAPHY (dropped in the Lovable design; restore here if wanted): Before founding x Impact Studio Colman was Global Managing Director at Unreasonable Group, and before that Senior Design Innovation Manager at Nike Foundation, where he architected products from concept to scale, including a youth digital platform that reached more than 30 million young people across 52 countries, and an empowerment programme reaching every 12-year-old girl in Rwanda. He helped design and raise the funding for the Girl Effect Accelerator, a £20M+ multi-donor, multi-country accelerator. Earlier, he served as a senior HIV/AIDS official in the Botswana government and founded two startups. He has coached design thinking with Stanford d.school’s Executive Education programme, taught as an adjunct professor at Columbia University, mentored more than 175 companies through Unreasonable programmes and worked in more than a dozen countries. He is based in London and works globally.
PORTRAIT: no portrait is used in the Lovable design. If you want one, add your own photograph here (Image block, 4:5).
Editor note — hidden on the live site.
COLLABORATORS SECTION — HELD (hidden on the live site until each person confirms). Lovable copy, ready to paste as a section: eyebrow “People we’ve collaborated with” · H2 “Different kinds of brilliant.” · “Some of the extraordinary people Colman has had the opportunity to collaborate with on projects.” · “Some challenges need different ways of seeing, making and solving. Over the years, Colman has had the opportunity to collaborate with extraordinary designers, technologists, strategists, operators and innovators. Here are a few of them.”
Josef George Kembel — Design, innovation + systems change — Founding director of Stanford’s d.school and a pioneer in human-centered design, Josef’s work spans creativity, leadership, learning and systems change. — linkedin.com/in/josefkembel/
Reyna Godoy — Experience design + creative direction — Reyna designs and delivers ambitious experiences that bring people, ideas and organisations together. — linkedin.com/in/reynagodoy/
Tom Farrand — Technology + digital transformation — Tom works at the intersection of technology, transformation and implementation, helping turn complex digital challenges into systems that work in practice. — linkedin.com/in/thomasfarrand/
Mara Abrams — Social innovation + collective action — Mara builds unconventional collaborations that mobilize people and institutions around complex social challenges. — (LinkedIn URL to confirm)
The work determines what’s needed.
We stay small at the centre and bring the right combination of perspectives and capabilities to the challenge at hand.
The studio model
Senior people.
Small teams.
Working outputs.
How we work
01Move quickly.
02Make things tangible.
03Tell the truth.
04Work with, not at, the client.
05Use expertise without worshipping expertise.
06Build capability rather than dependence.
07Keep some joy in the work.
What matters most right now?
Tell us what’s pressing, what you’ve tried and why it matters now. A few sentences are enough.
