Our team

Cato is Joint Managing Director alongside Gareth. She has spent her career helping organisations build their influence and impact by connecting to cultural change. She drives new thinking, pioneering new applications of cultural methods to solve clients increasingly complex strategic challenges. Her interdisciplinary experience spans ethnography, qual, cultural insight, brand and creative strategy and futures. A frequent speaker and thought leader, she specialises in health, food & beverage, fashion, beauty and sustainability.

Before Space Doctors, Cato spent 15 years at Added Value (Kantar), where she grew and led the Global Cultural Insights practice, including 2 years living and working in New York. She holds an MBA in Sustainable Development and leads our vision towards more regenerative futures. Beyond the 9-5, this city girl loves wilderness adventures, collecting vintage treasures and charity shopping.

Gareth is Joint Managing Director at Space Doctors alongside Cato, and is passionate about working with teams and leadership to make culture-centricity a core part of organizational success.

He regularly delivers cultural leadership training for marketing teams and industry bodies such as the MRS and ESOMAR, and has helped embed strategic cultural capabilities for clients including Procter & Gamble, The Coca-Cola Company and Givaudan. A keen problem-solver with global experience, Gareth also established and grew Space Doctors’ APAC office, network and client base from Singapore in the late 2010s.

Outside of leadership and marketing, his academic interests span literature, philosophy, sociology and cultural theory. Based in Brighton, he most enjoys reading, thinking and surfing and can often be seen bobbing in seaweed off the UK’s south coast.

Elisa is a Senior Director, based in London. With over 15 years’ experience, she specialises in solving complex strategic challenges through inventive, inter-disciplinary approaches spanning cultural insight, brand strategy, qual, ethnography and futures. She brings expertise in gender, female identity, and sustainability. She has worked closely on these topics with clients like Unilever, Google and LEGO helping to better connect with and innovate for women and girls, influence positive change and drive responsible growth, notably leading landmark work which inspired the creation of the Unstereotype Alliance.

She previously held strategic roles at The Futures Company, Ogilvy and Kantar Consulting, where she led their Human and Cultural Insight Practice. She has an MPhil in Cultural Theory from Cambridge and brings an international perspective having lived and worked in Bogotá, Madrid and New York. She combines strategic clarity, problem-solving craft and a collaborative style to help brands grow with purpose and relevance.

Mariah is one of our Senior Directors and Head of Strategy, based in Brighton. She brings client-side experience to translate cultural insights into actionable strategy, working across diverse sectors with clients including Paramount, Nestle, Amazon and Diageo. From creating new vodkas to understanding social commerce in China and redefining smoking cessation globally, she combines experimentation with expert facilitation, heading Space Doctors’ ‘Ecosystem’ operations while championing regenerative practices as a B Corp advocate.

Originally a US Air Force “brat” moving frequently as a child, Mariah holds a BS in Biomedical Sciences from UC Riverside and an MBA from Oxford Said Business School. She spent seven years at Novartis running half the transfusion medicine portfolio before joining Space Doctors in 2008. Mariah enjoys walking the downs with her dog Buddy, singing in a band, volunteering with Little Green Pig and running her local book club.

Sui Lai is one of our Senior Directors, based in Singapore. She leads cultural analytics globally – sense-making complex information streams from business intelligence, culture, qualitative, quantitative and open digital data to reveal insights, new narratives and strategy for organisations.

With over 15 years of experience in futures and innovation, Sui Lai has deep expertise in translating cultural dynamics and early signals into strategic opportunities. She helps brands understand how global shifts manifest across diverse markets, and how to embed culture and foresight into innovation and brand strategy to grow relevance and influence.

Michael is our North America Managing Director, based in Detroit. He specialises in extracting structure from ambiguity, helping clients understand what to ask and what to do next. Leading the North America team, he connects social science expertise to strategic challenges across growth, innovation, positioning, portfolio, design and communications, with automotive and health science clients including Polaris, Ford and Johnson & Johnson.

With a BFA in Industrial Design, an MA in Design Anthropology and a PhD in Cognitive Anthropology, Michael’s career spans General Motors, Bose Corporation and Ford Motor Company. He serves on the Executive Board of the Society for Anthropological Sciences, mentors junior anthropologists, and is a part-time professor at Wayne State Anthropology and Lawrence Tech Design. In his spare time, he pursues audio production, sound therapy and philosophy.

Malex is a Director, specialising in Futures and Creative Strategy, based between Brighton and Barcelona. She leads our Recoding offer, translating complex cultural shifts into creative clarity. Her work experience spans across speculative design, creative strategy, rituals, design and sensory semiotics, where she has helped to shape these innovative offers, In parallel Malex helps building deep Latin American expertise and presence.

A British-Venezuelan designer, semiotician and strategist with over 20 years’ experience, Malex has lived and worked across Latin America and Europe. Before rejoining Space Doctors, she founded Mundano Estudio, a disruptive brand and design consultancy based in Colombia. She holds a master’s in Design and Branding Strategy, is a Fellow at the School of Critical Design, and runs Futureña, exploring Latin American futures through culture. Out of work she is happiest dancing salsa, reading poetry and observing layered cultural rituals.

Julius is a Director and Head of Design, based in Brighton. He designs research, shapes strategy and creates solutions for complex spaces between consumer and culture, with a focus on technology and media. With longstanding client relationships including Microsoft and Paramount, he explores territories from AI futures to pop mythology, applying insights across disciplines to navigate the spaces where transformative ideas live.

An interdisciplinary nomad bridging arts and sciences, Julius trained in and now teaches the MA Art and Science at Central Saint Martins. His background weaves across disciplines: complexity science, systems theory, cognitive neuroscience, architecture and philosophy, and his experience cuts across contexts: working on challenges across international development, governance, charity and business. Julius follows his own creative practice through writing, making art and designing games inspired by ideas he’s still figuring out.

Tamara is a Director, based in the New York City area. She co-leads the Food & Beverage sector practice and has deep expertise in CPG brand and creative strategy. Her work spans global clients across food & beverage, personal care, beauty, entertainment, tech and automotive. She specialises in cutting through complexity to guide clients with culturally connected strategies, uncovering insights and linking them to macro perspectives.

With a BFA from RISD, an MFA from the School of Visual Arts, and marketing strategy studies at Cornell, Tamara brings over a decade of experience in cultural insights and brand and creative strategy. Her background in graphic design strengthens continuity from insights to strategy to activation. Outside work, she’s an enthusiastic, and proudly unremarkable, snowboarder and gardener.

Roberta Graham is one of our Directors, based in Folkestone, specialising in cultural insight and creative strategy. She excels at combining creativity and cultural depth, turning subtle cues and emerging patterns into compelling brand strategies. Roberta has led work on gender and woman/girlhood across categories from children’s toys and tech to sexual wellbeing, partnering with clients including LEGO, Google and Durex. Passionate about regenerative practices, she is expanding Space Doctors’ foresight capabilities to help brands future-proof responsibly.

A graduate of Central Saint Martins, Roberta began her career in high fashion. Her design training sparked a fascination with the cultural context of creativity, guiding her into semiotics and cultural insight. After freelancing between California, Portugal and the UK’s south coast, she transitioned full-time to the industry in 2017. Roberta’s happiest in nature, pole dancing, surfing (badly) or wrangling her three tiny but chaotic dogs.

Francesca is one of our Directors, based in London. She specialises in uncovering emotional and symbolic cultural layers, blending analytical rigour with imaginative thinking. Her work spans wellness, FMCG, alcohol and fragrance. She’s particularly energised by cultural sticking points and early signals of change, most recently exploring key inflection points for Coca-Cola. 

Prior to joining Space Doctors, Francesca spent 10 years at Kantar, where she built deep expertise in brand strategy, cultural insight and creative strategy. As a Visual and Material Anthropologist with a PhD from University College London, she brings a distinctive perspective on how meaning is expressed through images, objects, rituals and spaces. Her strength lies in translating cultural nuance into clear, actionable strategies that spark creativity and deliver real impact. She’s a proud maximalist, drawn to wild camping, getting lost in new places, and diving headfirst into sensorial experiences.

Jess is a Director, based in London who spans Insight, Strategy & Creative. Her specialism is within identity formation and gender, leading global clients within the beauty and tech sectors. Her true specialism is emotive, visual storytelling that creates genuine connection and impact.

Previously at Added Value and Kantar Consulting, Jess has over 12 years experience, with her work appearing on Times Square billboards, fragrance packaging for major apparel, beauty, luxury and personal care brands. She has showcased thought leadership at Adweek on ‘The Future of Marketing to Women’ and curated Hold Her Gaze, an immersive exhibition challenging marketing stereotypes that featured at Cannes Lions. Happiest when her dahlia’s are in bloom, and buying more beauty products that is strictly necessary.

Steve is a Director, based in our Brighton office. He specializes in the application of semiotic and cultural insight to help marketers future proof their strategies and build more meaningful connections between their brands and consumers.  Endlessly inquisitive about culture and communication, he brings inspirational understanding that transforms the way organisations think about a problem, always with clarity and commercial relevance.

He has a strong interest in capability building – ensuring that insight becomes a resource to elevate organisational learning through designing deliverables, toolkits and experiences that make the complex simple and that help new thinking land in a way that’s impactful, intuitive and compelling. Cultural insight has application across diverse categories, but he has particularly developed expertise in food & drink, personal care and beauty, retail and wellbeing – built across geographies, market segments and audiences.

James is one of our Directors, based in London. He specialises in travel and leisure, alcoholic beverages, and media & entertainment, with a particular fascination for service brands. He loves to bring Space Doctors’ thinking to life through engaging workshops and experiences for clients including Heineken and LEGO. Proud of Space Doctors’ B Corp status, he cares about framing better versions of the future, helping clients reimagine growth responsibly.

A graduate in French, Spanish and Business, James began his career in consumer goods brand management before moving to luxury alcohol at LVMH, then roles in brand strategy at British Airways, Added Value/Kantar, and Accenture Song, before joining Space Doctors in 2015. He’s often found exploring new locales, uncovering places through their food cultures and street markets. In London, one of his favourite haunts is Borough Market.

Pierre is a Associate Director, based in Toronto. He specialises in uncovering unexpected intersections between people, places and practices in culture, turning them into impactful insights. Working across F&B, automotive, luxury, personal care and consumer tech, he excels at connecting macro trends with everyday experiences, exploring everything from the future of placemaking to emergent sensorial rituals.

Half-French, half-Singaporean, Pierre has lived and worked in Singapore, China, the UK, Finland and Canada. With a BA(Hons) in Human Geography from Manchester and an MPhil in Heritage & Museums from Cambridge, he brings nuanced cultural understanding from diverse global experiences. When not at work, he nurtures his love of writing and cooking, contributing to volumes on Singapore’s WWI Cenotaph and colonial food exchanges, while dabbling in zero-waste fine dining.

Alex is one of our Project Directors, based in Manchester. She has a background in brand marketing, foresight and campaign delivery, with a particular expertise in beauty, sexual wellness, tech and food. Known for her organisation, she’s also the team’s go-to for meme-spotting and celebrity culture. 

With a journalism degree fuelling her fascination with what’s new and next, Alex began her career in fashion and beauty before pivoting to the world of cultural shifts and emerging trends. Motivated by the climate crisis, she helps steer brands towards preferable futures and champions Space Doctors’ B Corp status. When the laptop closes, you’ll find Alex teaching yoga, volunteering at her local running club or tending to her allotment – always nurturing growth both professionally and personally.

Kira is one of our Project Directors, based in Chicago. She specialises in “brand anthropology,” exploring how brands show up in people’s lives symbolically, emotionally and culturally. Her work combines ethnography, cultural analysis and brand thinking across finance, healthcare and tech, tackling everything from financial wellbeing to AI’s impact on browsing behaviours. She’s passionate about applying theoretical and critical lenses to brand work.

Beginning in biological anthropology studying primate behaviour, Kira earned an MS in applied cultural anthropology. She previously worked as a strategist at a boutique agency, evolving their offering from creative-led to strategy-led approaches grounded in cultural insight. Her international experience spans California, Sweden, Mexico and Colombia. In her down time, she enjoys music festivals, vintage shopping, time in nature, and life with her two highly opinionated cats.

Juli is one of our Project Directors, based in London. She works across live and urban experiences, theme parks, brand activations, popular media, fashion and beauty, exploring how storytelling and pop culture cross borders—geographic, cultural and generational. With clients like Paramount, Netflix, Conde Nast and SK-II, she decodes the design of experiences to show how culture reflects and reshapes identity and narratives.

Grounded in interdisciplinary cultural studies of media, history and politics, Juli has worked across APAC and now globally, bringing an intersectional, cross-regional lens to projects ranging from the shifting landscape of sports-as-entertainment to the future of urban life in South Korea. As a third-culture kid fluent in English, Japanese, Korean and German, she is committed to broadening the range of voices and perspectives in the networks she builds. Beyond work, she immerses herself in films and TV, with current obsessions ranging from translated cinema classics to animated sci-fi series.

Claire is one of our Project Directors, based in Manchester. She specialises in cultural strategy, using her background in social insights and digital marketing to weave together diverse disciplines to unpack complex business challenges. A critical sense-maker, she leads projects with Microsoft on Copilot AI and has also worked with media and entertainment clients including Paramount, Amazon Prime and Audible.

Through her cultural degree in American Studies from Birmingham University and her time working at a digital agency in New York she has deepened her fascination for structural and counter-cultural dynamics. A collaborative people person, she creates dynamic structures that enable the best thinking from diverse teams. Away from work, she’s a trained reflexologist, marathon runner, book club host and devoted DIY enthusiast, constantly renovating her Manchester home.

Manèle (Mel) is our Cultural Data Analyst, based in Paris. She uses social and news data to map culture from people’s perspectives, spotting patterns at scale and uncovering fresh angles on cultural phenomena. She works across diverse sectors, with a particular interest in media and entertainment, and brings a storytelling lens to data that connects insight with culture.

Initially studying International Politics, Mel then studied Arabic in Beirut before pivoting to data analytics. Inspired by publications like The Pudding, she honed her skills at the intersection of data and culture. Beyond the world of data, she enjoys writing and essaying on media theory through pop culture, watching old slasher movies, hosting game and dinner parties, trying new wine bars in Paris, and curling up with a cultural theory book.

Greenie is one of our Project Managers, based between cities in China. She specialises in uncovering the cultural currents behind what captivates people, looking beyond trends to decode the “why.” Her strength lies in translating insights through genuine multicultural understanding and native Gen Z fluency, helping clients connect authentically and stay relevant across beauty, F&B and personal care sectors.

An experienced cultural sector producer, researcher and project manager, Greenie has managed UK community arts projects, curated international exhibitions, produced theatre in China, and researched multicultural representation. She holds an MSc in Environmental Sustainability and Green Technology and a PhD in Human Geography, having lived in Denmark, the UK and New Zealand.

Layla is a Project Manager, based in London. She specialises in beauty, sexual wellness, and media & entertainment, particularly where these intersect with identity, queerness and self-expression. As a self-described cultural magpie, she brings structure to cultural chaos while maintaining a strong visual eye for translating cultural nuance into impactful stories. Passionate about inclusive futures, she helps brands move beyond surface representation toward meaningful change.

With an academic background in Anthropology and Cultural studies, specialising in gendered protest movements in the Middle East and queer identity in India, Layla previously worked in Firefish’s Cultural Strategy department with clients including Magnum, Ralph Lauren and various Unilever brands. In her own time, she’s a keen scrapbooker, singer and dancer who invariably gets songs stuck in everyone’s head.

Julia is our Creative, based in Oxford. They specialise in crafting stories visually within cultural contexts, with a particular interest in photography and cinematography. Years of research experience and active learning directly inform their approach to briefs and projects, bringing a strong understanding of how design shapes, creates and defines narratives.

Working as a book designer and printmaker in London and Oxford, Julia’s background spans the intersection of visual storytelling and cultural perspective. Outside Space Doctors, they teach visual language and printmaking workshops across Oxford communities, charities and collectives, helping people gain confidence in exploring their visual voice and connections to lived experience. They are also an associate lecturer in graphic design at Oxford Brookes University

Jax is our Project & SAP Coordinator, based in Brighton. He brings operational expertise to project coordination and systems management, ensuring smooth delivery across Space Doctors’ diverse client portfolio. A skilled multi-tasker with a keen eye for detail, he has particular knowledge of the food and beverage sector and excels at keeping complex projects on track.

With a music degree and experience at Riot Games, Microsoft and Disney, Jax also spent six years in Sydney as a wedding planner. That background translates perfectly to managing multi-stakeholder projects where timing and coordination are crucial for success.

Fliss is the Assistant to our Managing Directors and leads People & Culture operations, based in our Brighton office. With 12 years at the company, she brings deep experience supporting senior teams across the cultural insight industry. Her role spans everything from  executive assistance to nurturing company culture and supporting the international team.

She thrives on the adaptability needed to support a brilliant, globally distributed team, finding constant learning in the dynamic nature of her work. Fliss takes particular pride in Space Doctors’ B Corp status and feels a strong responsibility to uphold its values as the company continues to grow

Meg is our Commercial Manager, based in Brighton. She keeps projects flowing seamlessly from brief to delivery, bringing organisation and attention to detail that let the team’s creative and strategic work shine.

Meg started in the music industry, focusing on accessible events and music tech, before swapping tracks for business ops, applying the same coordination and problem-solving skills to keep Space Doctors running smoothly. She describes herself as the backstage roadie. In her spare time, she teaches fitness classes, explores vintage shops with her dog Buffy, and travels to discover the best international supermarkets.

Helen is our Team & Project Coordinator, based in Brighton. She drives sustainability across the business, from client travel to local supplier choices, while supporting daily operations, project delivery and office management. She thrives on variety and ensures Space Doctors’ work reflects its B Corp values.

With a degree in Modern Languages and Information Systems from UWE Bristol, Helen has worked in creative agencies in London and the Alumni Office at Oxford University, and has lived in Germany, Spain and Australia. Proud of Space Doctors’ 2021 B Corp accreditation and its partnership with the World Land Trust, she is motivated by evolving practices for the better. After hours, she volunteers in community campaigns, performs with a drumming group at environmental and social justice actions, and enjoys being outdoors close to nature.

Buddy is our Chief Happiness Officer. A food and beverage expert, he brings valuable sensory insights to client projects and has an unparalleled ability to sniff out new flavours anywhere. He also excels in entertainment strategy, capable of bringing a smile to anyone in under two seconds.

As Chief Happiness Officer, Buddy keeps office morale high, offering unofficial guidance on work-life balance and the importance of regular breaks. His wellness expertise includes walking, sleeping, eating well, and providing therapeutic cuddles.