At 26 I thought I lost everything.

My health. My job in research that I loved. My entire sense of self. I was diagnosed with chronic fatigue syndrome after I got glandular fever and just didn’t get better.

When I couldn’t cognitively process, visuals became the only way I could think and communicate.

Who knew that building visual thinking skills at rock bottom would turn into the best adventure of my life.

Slowly but surely, I rebuilt my health with visual thinking, helping me navigate every step, bump, and setback on the journey.

When I felt well enough, I wondered how my research skills and visual thinking abilities could be combined to address a gap in the market:

Academics are notoriously awful at communicating what they mean to audiences who need their work most.

So I started Nifty Fox Creative - a visual storytelling agency that helps academics and public sector leaders use the power of pictures to drive real-world change.

Whether that’s:

• translating cutting-edge research into animations and interactive infographics that change policy and practice and win multi-million pound funding;

• visual facilitation of leadership teams to help them embed a new national health or security strategy to make services more equitable;

• or live illustrating conferences, events and co-design sessions to ensure all voices get heard.

What started as just me, 1 day a week in 2017, has grown into a seven-figure global business, a team of 12, trusted by 80+ universities, 78 public sector organisations and over 5000 researchers internationally.

All because of a few doodles on a piece of paper I made when I couldn’t do anything else.