Julia Oertli

About

Julia helps organisations work through change where power, trust and relationships are part of the problem.

She’s a facilitator, researcher and organisational-change practitioner with more than a decade’s experience across government, civil society, philanthropy and social innovation. She runs her own practice, Orchid Culture Change, and works between London and Zürich.

On our projects she leads qualitative research and participatory design. She runs interviews, focus groups and roundtables, synthesises complex qualitative evidence into clear themes, and designs and facilitates workshops where people with very different levels of power can contribute safely. Her work covers social mobility and skills, racial justice, equitable grantmaking, organisational culture and access to nature.

Julia was a Systems Change Facilitator at Forum for the Future and managed the first phase of a £33m place-based social investment programme at Access, The Foundation for Social Investment. Earlier she coordinated research on entrepreneurship at UCL and led participatory action research with young people at Impact Hub Islington.

She’s at her best in the rooms other facilitators find hardest, where the subject is sensitive and the tensions are real.

EXPERTISE: Qualitative research and evidence synthesis · Participatory and trauma-informed facilitation · Organisational culture and change · Equity and anti-racism · Equitable grantmaking

QUALIFICATIONS: MSc Social Development Practice, UCL (Distinction) · BSc Anthropology, UCL (First Class)

TRAINING: Somatic and trauma-informed practice (The Embody Lab) · Art of Hosting · Diversity, Inclusion and Leadership Lab (TrustLab)

LANGUAGES: English and German