With so much happening day to day, strategy day is a rare opportunity to step back, reflect as a team, and think together about the future we’re building at OG.

Opportunity Green's team – 3rd Strategy Day

Last week was OG’s third strategy day, a day that has become one of our most meaningful traditions. We have come a long way – our very first strategy day involved just 10 people. This year, OG has 26 employees!

As per tradition, the day was facilitated by Blue Crab with Rebecca Dane and Jason Waskey organising the sessions and guiding our reflections.

The purpose of this day was to create space to think collectively, ask questions and share reflections. As a growing organisation, it’s important for us to find time to regroup, reflect on what has worked well, and identify where we can grow. It also allowed us to better understand each other’s work more deeply and strengthen cross-team collaboration and camaraderie.

Looking back: the OG journey

Our CEO, Aoife O’Leary, led a ‘history’ session on how OG began. Looking at OG’s evolution – from Aoife’s desk in her flat to our third office – showed how much has happened in such a short time. As with any fast-growing organisation, many of us weren’t here from the beginning, so seeing how it all came about was very inspiring.

It was also a great opportunity to reflect on what sets us apart as an organisation. Our bold and collaborative nature, our cross-discipline approach and our amazing work culture were all things that stood out. We also looked at our potential for growth and how we are ready to meet it. With OG’s rapid evolution, there’s a lot to feel excited about. As Aoife said, “Hold on to your seats!”

A deep dive into each team’s work

Back when there were only 10 of us, it was easy to know who did what. Now, with 26 people, new teams and projects, we took the time to really dig into each team’s mission, work and impact.

Each team presented who they are, what they do, their key milestones and accomplishments, how they collaborate across the organisation and what their goals for the year ahead are.

This exercise helped new joiners get up to speed quickly.

“Strategy day helped me better understand what each team does and how their work contributes to the bigger picture. It was great to see the thoughtfulness behind our work and the real impact it has,” says our new Legal Assistant, Tomi Oyepeju.

Even for long-timers, it provided a deeper understanding of each team’s work, highlighting where one team’s expertise can enrich another’s and sparking many ideas for future collaboration.

“OG's significant growth over the past year has meant not only welcoming some brilliant new colleagues, but also expanding and diversifying our areas of expertise,” says our Legal Officer, Dominika Leitane.

“Having each OG team (Climate Diplomacy, SASHA Coalition, Analytics, Legal, Operations and Comms) present their focus areas and future plans was instrumental in keeping up with all the amazing and impactful work OG is doing. It also gave everyone some much-needed space to reflect on how we can consolidate our growth and foster deeper multidisciplinary collaboration.”

Understanding our audiences

Our Communications Director, Hannah Jolliffe, led a workshop focused on audiences and persona-building. In this fun group exercise, we created persona representing different types of audience.

It was surprising and insightful to see each team’s perspectives on our key audiences, and it helped surface shared ideas and assumptions about our audience. The results will be a valuable input to shape our future comms strategy.

Looking ahead: our growth philosophy

To help us reflect on our journey and shape our path forward, our Chief Strategy and Impact Officer, Carly Hicks, led a ‘Peek under the hood’ session.

As Carly puts it: “This day was an opportunity to take pride in how far we’ve come, own our growth and reflect on how we want to evolve. At OG, growth isn’t just about numbers. It’s about scaling with purpose, staying true to our mission, ensuring the work we do continues to have impact, and nurturing the culture that makes us who we are.”

Our approach to growth is:

Holistic and intentional: we’re not scaling for the sake of it, but to deepen our impact and expand our work.
Rooted in systems change: we combine legal expertise, policy insights, diplomacy, analytics and communications to drive the transformation we want to see.
Supported by a brilliant Opps team: as we grow, so does the infrastructure that enables our people to thrive.
Open to experimenting: we’re not afraid to try, fail, learn and try again.
Committed to staying bold: no matter how big we get, we’re holding on to the creativity, ambition and out-of-the-box thinking that have brought us this far.

Our CEO’s reflections on the day

“Our annual strategy day has become an OG firm favourite! We've had Blue Crab Strategies in every year to help us plan and have a really fun, but also useful day,” says our CEO Aoife O’Leary.

“What was incredible to me was that this year, there was demand for a ‘history’ of OG which I presented to everyone, starting with a photo of our first office, aka my apartment at the time! Even though we are only coming up to four years old this October, we have already achieved so much and are capable of doing so much more in the future. And the strategy day helped to crystallise what we can do next that will really have the impact we are hoping for.”

With 26 brilliant minds moving as one team, we’re ready for the next chapter!