James Lock

WORK HISTORY

EDUCATION

ABOUT JAMES LOCK

I’ve worked for just shy of 20 years at Opus, a worker owned and worker led organisation, based in Sheffield, that I helped co-found in 2008. Opus aims to create and support responses to achieve urgent systems change. We do this by telling stories, bringing people together and demonstrating proofs of possibility. I’ve worked across-sectors in a variety of different project orchestration, development and delivery roles. Before/while setting up Opus I had experience of working in a variety of different jobs, from labouring, to factory work, to retail, to office admin, sales, supply teaching etc. I also worked at the Big Issue in the North for two years in Sheffield. My work at Opus is currently oriented around micro-massive place based transitions - with a focus on Sheffield and South Yorkshire. I’m deeply curious about the (I believe) necessary mix of networked, infrastructural, narrative, relational and platform based responses to systems problems like poverty, marginalisation, biosphere collapse, democratic renewal and media reform. I’m motivated by a deep sense of complicity, responsibility and curiosity as both a witness and a participant in the deeply entangled and existential challenges of this moment. I work on hyper-local community led projects, as well as city and regional infrastructure projects in Sheffield and across South Yorkshire. I also work internationally across a variety of different networks and platforms for emerging system change. I am a grateful father of two young children. I continue to (try to) be enthusiastic and hopeful about contributing to a world which values all humans, more than humans, is equitable, is ecologically regenerative and which gives primacy to wellbeing, quality of life and discovery.I currently show up in a few different roles and spaces. Here are a few of them Co Founder & Director at OpusCo Founder of Now Then MagazineCo Founder of the UBI Lab NetworkCo Founder of Festival of DebateCo Founder of Foundations EarthCo Founder of The River Don ProjectVoluntary Roles: Social Entrepreneur In Residence at Sheffield Hallam UniversityAdvisory Board Member on SYMCA Local Nature Recovery StrategyGeneral Secretary of the Independent Media AssociationSouth Yorkshire Social Enterprise Place Steering Group MemberAdvisory Board Yorkshire & Humber Office for Data Analytics