A tree comes down. The canopy opens. Light reaches ground that has been dark for decades.
The gap is where change becomes possible. Nothing has been added to make it. Something that was holding is simply no longer there.
Institutions can open in the same way.
Windthrow exists to understand what holds a situation in place, recognise where it is already beginning to give, and help the people with the authority to act make use of that opening.
The strategy may be sound. The people may be capable. Yet something keeps the situation from moving.
I work beneath the stated problem to understand the structures, incentives, relationships, assumptions and histories that are actually producing it.
Change rarely begins with a blank sheet.
There are usually relationships that are working, assumptions that are weakening, people already experimenting, or decisions that have become possible but not yet been taken.
The task is to find those openings and understand what they make possible.
This is not strategy delivered from a distance.
I work alongside boards, executives, public leaders, funders and other people with the authority to act — providing independent judgement, challenging assumptions, making sense of complexity and remaining close enough to help when the consequences of a decision become real.
Luke works with leaders facing problems that have already absorbed significant effort but still aren't moving.
His work sits at the intersection of strategy, systems thinking, institutional design and practical action.
He studied how organisations and public systems behave, then spent his career having to make them work.
He holds a PhD in Government and International Relations from the University of Sydney, where his research examined complexity in public policy: why interventions that appear sound on paper behave differently once they encounter the organisations, incentives and relationships through which they must operate.
That research produced System Effects, a methodology for analysing complex systems that has since been applied with collaborators in dozens of countries.
He has also built institutions from the ground up.
He co-founded FoodLab Sydney, a cross-sector partnership addressing food insecurity in the City of Sydney through small-business incubation. He founded PLACE Australia, a national organisation supporting place-based approaches to social change.
In both cases, the work began before the institution existed. The partnerships, governance, funding and accountability arrangements had to be negotiated into existence before the work could properly begin.
He has worked inside government as a Design Director at the Australian Taxation Office, where he led its Foresight team and developed systems-led design; at Collaboration for Impact he supported the implementation of Stronger Places, Stronger People across ten communities; and lectured in public sector management at UNSW Canberra, teaching systems thinking and applied complexity to Australian Defence Force personnel while consulting internationally to public sector agencies.
Luke has studied systems, designed within institutions, built new organisations and led people through the consequences of consequential decisions.
He knows the difference between a problem that needs a better strategy and one where the strategy is not the thing that is actually in the way.
If the situation has already absorbed considerable effort and still isn't moving, get in touch.
luke@windthrow.com.au