People

Deborah Mattinson is a political consultant, senior business leader, serial entrepreneur and experienced charity trustee.

Deborah was appointed Director of Strategy to Keir Starmer in July 2021 and was a key member of the team that delivered unprecedented electoral success three years later. Her first election campaign was in 1987, working with Peter Mandelson and Philip Gould to create Labour’s Shadow Communications Agency for Neil Kinnock. She advised Tony Blair prior to 1997 and went on to become chief pollster to Rt Hon Gordon Brown, first as Chancellor of the Exchequer, then as Prime Minister.

Through this period, Deborah was one of Britain’s leading commentators on public opinion, frequently speaking, writing and broadcasting about the mood of the nation. Her first book, Talking to a Brick Wall, which chronicled the New Labour years through the eyes of the voter, was published in 2010. Her second book, Beyond the Red Wall, used ethnography, qualitative and quantitative research to understand changing voting patterns in the 2019 General Election.

Deborah has also set up and run several successful businesses. In 1992, she co-founded Opinion Leader Research, a specialist strategy consultancy which she later sold to the Chime Communications Group. She then founded the Smart Company, – a CSR strategy business which was also acquired by Chime and later merged with the Corporate Citizenship Company.

In 2010 Deborah left Chime to co found BritainThinks, now Thinks Insight and Strategy, where she worked with a wide range of clients including Abbott Laboratories, McDonald’s, the CityUK and Apetito.

Deborah has used her political and business experience as trustee for a number of charities including dance festival, Dance Umbrella, as well as thecampaigning organization Green Alliance. She served two terms as Chair of Young Women’s Trust (formerly YWCA), overseeing a major change management programme including recruitment of a new board and senior management team, streamlining and redesigning key services, relaunching the new brand and returning finances to the black after many years of deficit. Deborah is also passionate about the theatre; she was on the board and development board of the Theatre Royal at Stratford East until 2021 and is currently serving on an advisory board to the National Theatre.

Since stepping down from her role with Keir Starmer’s team after the election, Deborah provided consultancy to the Washington, D.C.-based think tank, Progressive Policy Institute, advising the Democrats ahead of the U.S. election and subsequently sharing the ‘lessons learned’ with sister parties in other countries. The Prime Minister nominated her to be a life peer last Autumn, and she will be introduced to the House of Lords in February.