Tom began his career at Edelman as a communications strategist, advising global brands like Unilever, PayPal, and Toyota, as well as managing Edelman’s thought leadership platform, the Trust Barometer. Stints at thought leadership consultancy Reputation Leaders and data science company Black Swan followed.

He founded Cast from Clay in 2016, in the wake of the UK’s vote to leave the EU, on the belief that public engagement with policy matters, and that creating effective public constituencies is not only intrinsically important, but instrumentally the most effective way of securing policy change.

Tom has been a guest speaker and lecturer at several dozen institutions, including the Cambridge Union, the World Bank, Sandhurst, SOAS, and the Brookings Institution. He runs the ‘Getting policy unstuck’ series to learn from policy innovators, as well as being an irregular contributor and judge for PRWeek. He holds an MA in Terrorism, Security & Society from King’s College London, a BA (Hons) in Middle Eastern History from the University of Manchester.

His clients include