Prior + Partners

Founder of Disruptive Urbanism, Paula Hirst, was the Director of Strategy at Prior + Partners (P+P), a masterplanning and urban design practice, from Autumn 2019 to Spring 2022. During the first six months of her employment, Paula led a series of internal initiatives to help transition the company from start up to small business. These included:

• Reviewing all policies and procedures of the organisation and overseeing the development of a suite of new employment policies

• Reviewing the approach to strategic human resource management to recommend changes in the approach to the management and development of employees

• Reviewing the internal mechanisms for monitoring the performance of projects, developing recommendations for changing the nature of project reviews and approaches to commercial management and project oversight

• Reviewing the approach to management decision making and internal communications, developing and implementing improvements

• Reviewing the approach to business development, lead/bid identification and decision making, and resource management, developing and implementing recommendations for improvement

• Organising internal leadership team workshops to debate and agree business development strategies and approaches to contact and client relationship management.

Subsequently in 2020, as the effects of the Covid 19 global and UK lockdowns reverberated throughout the UK economy, and the business environment become more challenging, Paula brought the P+P leadership team together to discuss various options. She developed and ran strategy workshops to consider how the practice might use its skills and experience differently, thereafter actively supporting colleagues to reconfigure services to respond to the changing marketplace.