Sonnet and our values
We are a consultancy that provides financial, strategic and impact advice to organisations that want to improve their business performance and social impact.
As a Community Interest Company, we are proud to have committed to transferring 65% of our profits into a fund available to support social research programmes and other activities designed to address issues within the sectors we work in.
Our approach
We believe that every organisation that cares about its impact should be able to benefit from expert advice and guidance.
We can act as a sounding board, sharing in the development of solutions. We can manage the whole process or ‘chip in’ where we’re most useful. However we work, we keep our clients involved at every stage so they can both lead and learn.
Reinforcing people ownership, leadership and pride
Facilitating collaboration to build solutions together
Sharing knowledge and practices to empower teams
Articulating collective intelligence
Our team
Kirsten Hopkins
Senior Consultant
Biography
Kirsten Hopkins
I am an experienced business consultant who has worked across sectors in Southern Africa, Europe and the UK. I’ve led large incubation, change and improvement programmes to enable organisations to grow and excel in their mission, including on digital transformation. Having worked within very complex systems and partnerships, I bring a wealth of experience in better determining how cohesion, collaboration and communication can be built and nurtured and as a result, have built many strong, varied and productive partnerships to achieve this. My expertise in service design, impact measurement and social innovation, enables new, fresh and ‘out-of-the-box’ perspectives to tackle social issues. My background in business development has also helped organisations to generate and diversify income. I am also an international speaker, coach and trainer who delivers content on social innovation and service design.
Having worked with many individuals, leadership teams and organisations to develop strategy and deliver organisational design, I have a deep and practical understanding of the conditions required for change – but it still keeps me up at night.
Being curious and inquisitive by nature, I delight in unveiling the motivations, roots and barriers to systemic change and with a problem solving approach, always try to seek and source the best solutions to catalyse change.
I have a particular affinity to a focus on social challenges relating to children, young people and families (especially those which may create greater vulnerability) – and as a budding futurist – the impact of modern and emerging technology on society.
Jim Clifford
Chief Executive
Biography
Jim Clifford OBE, Chief Executive
With over thirty-five years in managing and advising social enterprises, charities, public agencies and private sector organisations facing all sorts of opportunities and challenges, I can draw on so many real life situations, experiences, and solutions. An accountant and corporate financier by origin, with experience in insolvency and turnaround, expert evidence and investigation and valuations, from around 2004 I developed specialisms in impact measurement, social research and social investment. I now lead complex and strategic projects with clients in all sectors tackling re-imagining their business, planning for the future (including exits), merging and forming strategic partnerships, fundraising, addressing governance and structural issues, understanding their situation and the systems around them, and managing, measuring and valuing their impact.
It matters to me that I create an impact – positive social, environmental and economic change – for others, and I want to inspire, encourage, guide and enable others to make an impact too. I do this by supporting and advising clients, by my academic research and teaching, by working in policy influence, lead-authoring the EU impact measurement standards amongst others, and in creating Sonnet. I love tackling apparently simple, but in reality challenging, questions, such as what is the value brought by a social tenancy; how can children’s adoption placement work better; how can we merge two International NGOs; or how can private business make a difference?
Jake Kemp
Executive
Biography
Jake Kemp, Executive
I bring a strong understanding of impact at a human, strategic and organisational level having worked with clients of different sizes, models, areas of need and scope of operations. I bring experience of mixed methods investigation and research, spanning workshops, interviews with service users or customers and stakeholders, and developing financial evaluations of the outcomes achieved. I have deep insight into how an understanding of impact can serve as a catalyst for organisations to better understand their services, their clients and service users and the spaces that they operate within. The challenge of finding new and meaningful ways to communicate impact – simply, compassionately and in an engaging way – is something that I really enjoy.
There are ways for positive impact to be realised in every setting and situation, unpicking systemic and societal issues helps us to get to the heart of issues and begin to think about the levers to pull to change things for the better. Throughout my work, I have learned that impact applies to any organisation and therefore everyone has the potential to be a force for good.
Tim Gage
Finance Director
Biography
Tim Gage, Finance Director, Senior Consultant
As a Chartered Accountant with over thirty-five years’ experience in in-house management and advisory roles spanning the public, private and charity sectors I bring expertise in financial and business analysis, accounts preparation, financial systems and controls, evaluation of loss, and corporate governance and compliance. Sound information and information systems underpin all great organisations and I help clients to ensure they are simple understandable and reliable. I have also taught accounting, financial management, and corporate governance at degree level, and build clients’ organisational and individual learning in these areas so they can better manage their businesses and operations.
With a world increasingly focused on social and environmental impact as well as operational efficiency and financial sustainability I am excited about using my skills in this wider arena, setting my financial, operational and governance insights against others’ impact ones. Sonnet embraces so many ages, backgrounds and viewpoints amongst its team. Yet all its staff are focussed on achieving positive impact for themselves and our clients: what a privilege it is to be part of that.
Emily Hutchison
Impact Project Lead
Biography
Emily Hutchison, Impact Project Lead
With my background as a government economist and economics consultant at Ernst and Young, at Sonnet I support clients to assess, articulate and value the impact of policy changes, projects and organisations. It is vital that impacts on people and society are at the heart of decision-making for public-facing organisations. I use my economics knowledge, experience in value for money frameworks and research skills to lead and deliver successful work in this field of impact.
Having worked in the area of public finances and health sector regulation for a decade I understand the real trade-offs that face our government. Ensuring that public funding is committed to the right areas that make a difference to people is very important to me, and that these decisions are underpinned by a strong evidence base. I am keen to use my skills and knowledge to help build this stronger evidence base, supporting clients both outside of and within government to understand and maximise their impact.
Danielle Yeung
Manager
Biography
Danielle Yeung, Manager
I have over ten years of experience working in nonprofit organisations across Hong Kong and the UK. I have supported charities that work with people experiencing homelessness, vulnerable young people and women. My work includes impact monitoring and evaluation, developing theories of change, service design and implementation. Drawing on my experience, from working as a youth worker to specialising in impact and evaluation, I have a deep understanding of the frontline challenges social purpose organisations face and the critical importance of delivering services that truly transform the lives of their beneficiaries
My first-hand experience working in charities enables me to take on an empathetic approach in communicating with professionals working in the sector. My education background in nonprofit management and public health, equips me with the knowledge and tools to support charities in designing evidence-based impact measurement framework that are easily applicable to their organisations.
I believe every charity makes a difference and I am passionate in empowering them to tell their stories.
Claire Wilson-Lynch
Compliance and Administration Manager
Biography
Claire Wilson-Lynch, Compliance and Administration Manager
I have over twenty years’ experience in both law and corporate finance, as well as over ten years’ experience as a proofreader involved in editing both academic and professional publications.
I have excellent organisation skills and attention to detail, both of which enable me to work with the team here at Sonnet to identify and manage regulatory risk, as well as support the management team in the areas of compliance and other aspects of company administration. I have a particular specialism in writing, editing, and proofreading, having spent the last ten years managing my own editing and proofreading business.
I am delighted to be part of a dynamic, impact-focussed team that is committed to achieving a positive impact for its clients. Knowing that our work contributes to positive outcomes brings a rewarding sense of purpose.
Alice Hulbert
Manager
Biography
Alice Hulbert, Manager
I bring experience that spans impact exploration, explaining and measuring what is happening, impact-focused transactions and fundraising in the UK and Europe, and corporate structure, governance and control. I have used story-telling approaches in mixed-methods studies through workshops, interviews, rapid evidence and literature reviews, and management consulting tools for exploring causation and chains of outcomes. In the governance arena I have developed, assessed and restructured structures and approaches within Boards, and their links to management and other control systems in the organisation. I have worked on due diligence, valuations and structuring acquisitions that balance financial sustainability and value with delivering business development and impact.
I am interested in impact management and business as a force for good. How understanding an organisation’s impact, and articulating this to stakeholders, can: drive further change both at an organisational level (through communicating this impact to staff); and at a systemic level (to drive further impact across wider society); how it can open access to more resources and open doors to finance (including social finance).
Associates of Sonnet
Professor Peter Wells
Non-Executive Director, Sonnet & Professor of Public Policy Analysis and Evaluation, Sheffield Hallam University
Biography
Professor Peter Wells
I am a Professor Emeritus at Sheffield Hallam University and an independent researcher. Over a 30 year academic and policy career I have authored over 100 academic papers and reports. I have also undertaken research for the UK government departments, the European Commission, National Lottery Community Fund and a range of charities and foundations. The focus of my work is to work with funders, partners and communities to better measure, understand and develop their impact. I have led major studies into youth unemployment, social investment and regional economic development. I am also a co-investigator and co-director of the £10m ESRC funded Centre Collaboration in Community Connectedness – and a member of the Youth Future Foundation’s Grants and Evaluation Committee.
Professor Sarah Pearson
Non-Executive Director, Sonnet & Director, Social and Economic Research Institute, Sheffield Hallam University
Biography
Professor Sarah Pearson
Dr. Al Mathers
Associate
Biography
Dr. Al Mathers
Having worked across the academic, charitable and practice sectors for over 20 years, Al helps
organisations define their strategic approach to change, build their research and evaluation
capabilities, and embed inclusive and participatory approaches. She has held national
leadership roles in the charitable sector for over 10 years, including Director of Research at The
Young Foundation, Director of Research and Learning at The RSA and Head of Research at Good
Things Foundation.
Before moving to the charity sector Al worked in academia, where her work
focused on research partnerships with underrepresented groups redesigning participatory
approaches to landscape architecture and urban design. As an expert in participatory research
and digital inclusion, Al holds a number of advisory board positions including steering group
membership of the ESRC’s Public Voices in AI programme, INCLUDE+, Developing a minimum
digital living standard for households with children, DigiAge: Equity for the Older: Beyond Digital
Access, expert grant panel membership of the Oliver Bird Fund and panel member for the
Co-Production Futures Inquiry. Al is committed to cross sector impact and growing learning and
collaboration cultures between policymakers, academia, businesses and charities for people,
places and the planet.
Dr. Abdel-Karim Al-Tamimi
Associate
Biography
Dr. Abdel-Karim Al-Tamimi
I am a seasoned researcher with over 20 years of experience spanning research, industry, and academia. I lead pioneering research in Machine Learning, data analytics and cybersecurity. As head of the Conversational AI Research Cluster and co-founder of several startups including cybermati (a CyberASAP alumnus), I actively bridge academia and industry. Over the past three years, I’ve secured funding from Innovate-UK, UKRI, NIHR, EPSRC, and DSIT to deliver high-impact, real-world solutions. I advise leading companies in the South Yorkshire region, serve on the NIHR RfPB Regional Advisory Committee (RAC), and mentor at both the Advanced Wellbeing Research Centre (AWRC) and Innovate UK’s Digital Boost programmes.
Building on my extensive international experiences across the UK, US, Germany, Jordan, UAE, and Saudi Arabia, I focus on leveraging multidisciplinary research to address complex societal challenges. My work integrates technical innovation with inclusive, cross-sector collaboration to ensure that AI-driven solutions are not only effective and scalable, but also ethically grounded and socially impactful.
Sarah Tayleur
Associate
Biography
Sarah Tayleur
I am an experienced researcher and evaluator in the non-profit and public sector, having worked across adult and youth organisations to deliver impactful research and evaluation activities. I am passionate about bringing trauma and culturally informed approaches to research and evaluation and ensuring those with lived experience are the heart of projects through using participatory and co-produced approaches.
Over the last decade, I have worked with a range of social purpose organisations to evaluate their work and tell the story of their impact. I have worked across research, strategy, and learning projects, always aiming to centre the voice of those with lived experience and make evidence useful and accessible for the people driving change.
I have subject matter expertise in homelessness, mental health, violence against women and girls, drug & alcohol services, and the criminal justice system – or what is often referred to as experiences of multiple disadvantage.
Jacquelyn van Jaarsveld
Associate
Biography
Jacquelyn van Jaarsveld
I am an experienced finance professional with a diverse background spanning advisory, executive leadership and non-executive director roles. I have extensive experience across the investment sector, working with businesses ranging from start-ups to established organisations, with particular expertise in financial services, real estate, manufacturing and consumer goods.
My work spans a broad range of strategic and financial projects, including investment portfolio restructuring, investment reviews, asset allocation, strategic planning, business and cost modelling, sourcing investment opportunities, due diligence, transaction structuring and M&A activity. I also advise on corporate governance, governance reviews and board structures.
Having worked closely with high-net-worth individuals and family trusts for many years, I bring a deep understanding of the dynamics of family businesses, the challenges of intergenerational stewardship and the transformative role philanthropy can play for both donors and beneficiaries.
I enjoy working collaboratively with clients and supporting them through complex strategic and financial challenges. I am passionate about making finance accessible and believe finance professionals should help “make numbers speak” – using financial insight to tell a clear and compelling story. In impact-focused organisations, I see financial data as a powerful tool for communicating value and accountability to stakeholders. I consider it a privilege to work alongside individuals and organisations committed to making a meaningful difference in the world.
Having lived in seven countries, many of them developing economies, I have a strong interest in charities and organisations that are community-based and focused on creating sustainable, long-term impact, particularly through education and community empowerment initiatives.
In addition to my advisory work, I also serve as a Trustee for two grant-making charities.
Molly Turrell
Associate
Biography
Molly Turrell
I am a qualitative researcher with a strong focus on public health, gender, and social inequalities. I have conducted research across the UK and Australia, exploring issues including homelessness, reproductive health, sexual violence, and experiences of people who use drugs. My work has included in-depth qualitative research, impact evaluation, literature and rapid evidence reviews, and the application of thematic analysis to generate policy-relevant insights. Across my research career, I have developed a strong understanding of how to centre lived experiences while producing rigorous, actionable findings.
My work is underpinned by a strong commitment to gender equity, intersectionality, and culturally safe practice. I bring a thoughtful and collaborative approach, underpinned by strong analytical skills. I am passionate about using research to support organisations to better understand the communities they serve and drive more equitable outcomes.
Our corporate partners
Sheffield Hallam University
Sonnet Advisory and Impact CIC is an associate company of Sheffield Hallam University. SHU is proud to be a partner of Sonnet and together we work to combine academic, policy, strategy and financial expertise to benefit organisations and wider society. Sonnet is able to draw on expertise from across SHU and in particular from its leading policy research centres, Centre for Regional Economic and Social Research, Centre for Development and Research in Education and the Centre for Behavioural Science and Applied Psychology. Working together with SHU’s Social and Economic Research Institute we seek to address some of the major social, economic and environmental challenges we face.
