Who we are

The Change Network is a cooperative of experienced communicators who have campaigned together around the world for more than 20 years in pursuit of conflict mitigation, human development, and peaceful, positive change.

Collectively, we have worked with governments, civil society, political parties, and militaries in more than 40 countries.

We work wherever we think we can make a difference for ordinary people, by supporting democratic aspirations, better governance, and human security in all its forms – be that through winning elections, promoting sound social and environmental policies, countering extremism and disinformation, or reducing violence.

We specialize in divided societies. In our experience, transformational change can only occur where the change effort, and the communications that support it, are based on understanding the social and political systems that underly conflict, and how systemic change works.

Global Experience

Specialist communicators in elections, governance, human development, and reduction of conflict

Kyrgyzstan

MOROCCO

IRAQ

SERBIA

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Somalia

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What we do

We are a research-based, strategy-led collective that has learned – in a global operating

environment constrained by smaller budgets, shorter timeframes, and higher standards of

accountability – how to campaign intelligently and effectively while doing more with less.

Our communications services include:

• Research and target audience analysis

• Situation analysis

• Strategy development

• Campaign development and management

• Capacity-building

• Crisis communications

• Skills development and training

Our services are supported by a global network of individual specialists with backgrounds in politics, diplomacy, human development, and the military, whom we deploy ad hoc according to client needs.

How We Work

We conduct research at every level, depending on the need and available resources. This can include anything from intensive preliminary discussions with clients, to desk and literature research, to consulting with academic and field experts, to focus groups and polling among target audiences, and to the analysis of relevant big-data sources that we can access in line with European data protection standards. These activities are equally applied to measurements of performance, effect, impact, and success.

Our research product informs every stage of our approach to strategy. This ensures that strategy development is entirely specific to the client challenge, and continually refreshed and refined by the insights we accumulate over time. In turn, this feeds into the development of operational solutions that are uniquely adapted to prevailing conditions and circumstances.

We don’t make untested assumptions about what will or won’t work, and we don’t come into the ops room with a cookie-cutter – though our collective campaigning experience is often a handy guide to what has worked elsewhere. Capacity and team building is central to our ethos and built into every campaign design. Behaviour-changing campaigns – be they elections or countering bad actors in whatever form – are not won by international teams flying in to deliver turn-key solutions. ​They are won through a combination of global and local experience, expertise and capability, with each side informing and learning from the other.

Winning the next election or launching a national campaign might be an immediate goal, but we believe in leaving behind a capacity for the long-term – by helping develop a local team with the skills and systems to deliver effective communications in years to come.

Our principals

PAUL-CHRISTIAN BELL

Paul-Christian Bell CVO has worked for governments and businesses in more than 20 countries, notably South Africa where he was director of information for its electoral commission during the 1994 transition to democracy, and Iraq during 2004-11 where he led US forces’ largest civilian stratcom operation. A former chief executive of the Bell Pottinger Group in London, his clients have included the US Departments of Defence and State, USAID, the International Republican Institute, the British Home Office, Ministry of Defence, and National Health Service, and the European Union. In recent years he has lived in Georgia, observing a post-Soviet state struggling on the frontline between democracy and authoritarianism. He has a bachelor’s degree in history and politics from the University of Cape Town, has been a regular contributor to the NATO Defence Strategic Communications journal, and is a Senior Fellow of the Sympodium Institute for Strategic Communications. In 2023 he was appointed a Commander of the Royal Victorian Order for his services to youth development.

SAM PATTEN

Sam Patten is a senior communications, public affairs and political professional who has managed and directed projects that instigate change in nearly a dozen countries around the world. Sam’s international work includes the 2014 parliamentary elections in Iraq and the 2012 election of the opposition to government in the former Soviet Republic of Georgia. In U.S. political and governmental roles, Sam was appointed by former President George W. Bush to serve as advisor at the State Department in 2008, and served two senators from Maine as a speechwriter and legislative aide.

Dana P. Eyre, PhD. is a sociologist specializing in strategic communications and social change; working with clients including the USG, HMG, and the UN, he has guided over $550m worth of multi-media production. He holds a PhD in sociology from Stanford and a BA in liberal studies from San José State. He has 15 years graduate teaching experience and over a decade on-the-ground in Bosnia-Hercegovina, Kosovo, Iraq, and Afghanistan and beyond. He was a Fellow at the US Institute of Peace, a senior advisor for DARPA, and a peace building and counter-radicalization communications consultant in Iraq and Afghanistan. He has taught in the Department of Behavioral Sciences and Leadership, West Point; in the Department of National Security Affairs at the US Naval Postgraduate School, at the Pearson Peacekeeping Centre in Canada, and at George Mason University. He has led ground-breaking efforts to develop analytical software for conflict and complex social system analysis. His research focuses on social change processes and organizational learning and planning for complex social change campaigns.

DANA EYRE

MARK TURNBULL

Mark Turnbull is a strategic communications consultant with 35 years’ experience and extensive international achievements in corporate and political communications, reputation management, brand strategy, advertising and public relations. His experience includes a decade devising and directing ‘social change’ communications campaigns to reframe and shape conflict environments – including extensive work in Iraq and across the Middle East. Election campaign experience includes South Africa, Sri Lanka, Latvia, Somalia, Iraq, Kenya, Serbia, Romania, Georgia, Honduras, Morocco and Mexico. Mark has a BA in Philosophy from Cambridge University, an MSc in International Politics from the University of Toronto and a Diploma in Psychoanalytical Psychology from Birkbeck University.

STEPHEN HARLEY

Stephen Harley is a former British Army infantry and Information Operations officer and English teacher who has latterly worked in Iraq & the pan-Arab region for the US government, in Afghanistan for NATO and in Somalia for the UN and the UK FCDO in the fields of counterterrorism, Preventing & Countering Violent Extremism (P/CVE) and Strategic Communication. He currently works for the British High Commission in Nairobi as an advisor on countering the al-Qaida linked terror group, al-Shabaab. He has published extensively on counterterrorism and Somalia, notably two chapters in NATO COE DAT's 'Good Practices in Counterterrorism' and two chapters in the UN’s seminal study, ‘War and Peace in Somalia: National Grievances, Local Conflicts & al-Shabaab’. He also covers Somalia for The Economist Group and is a PhD candidate at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow ('Creative Writing as a Treatment for PTSD'). He is also, as this self-portrait suggests, handy with a pen, ink and sketchpad.

Mihajlo Popesku is a leading research specialist, marketing scientist, and data innovator with a PhD in Marketing Science. His primary expertise lies in advanced quantitative research and applied statistics, focusing on market segmentation and statistical modelling. He has spent the past decade and a half working on more than 70 large-scale research projects for clients across 30+ countries, spanning industries including tech, finance, retail, leisure, and consumer goods. His research specialities include measuring and quantifying the invisible and providing high-validity insights that enable clients to make data-driven decisions confidently. He is constantly seeking new and innovative ways to leverage different data and scientific breakthroughs to generate high-validity insights that drive real-world results. His commitment to excellence has been recognised by Udemy, which ranks him in the top 0.01% of research experts globally.

MIHAJLO POPESKU

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