The PinkGold Story

The founder and owner of PinkGold Ltd is Dr Anne Collis. She is Autistic. The chemical symbol for gold is Au and so gold is increasingly used as a symbol of being Autistic. She is so many things in addition, all of which contribute to her identity, business approach and creative intelligence. In essence, she is pink-gold, an amalgam of many identities. 

Anne has a long history as a social entrepreneur and freelancer. Her greatest pleasure to date is being part of co-founding Barod CIC back in 2013. It was as part of Barod that she was sent to Bangor University to be a doctoral student to try to create a method for public consultation that removes barriers to engagement. Everything seemed to need people to read, write, socialise with strangers or answer questions. Each created barriers for people involved with Barod who wanted to get involved in policy-making and public service consultations. 

The final product was an unusual, possibly unique, doctoral thesis. What makes it possibly unique is that the entire thesis is written twice, on the right hand pages in academic language and on the left hand pages as an everyday language summary. Writing that way was a case of walking the walk. The thesis challenged barriers in accessing knowledge and the low value often placed on knowledge gained from lived experience. How could Anne not write a 'bilingual' thesis?

PinkGold Ltd is building on a solid foundation of knowledge co-created over a lifetime of work and almost a decade of part-time academic reflections and research.

Anne is looking forward to building a strong network of associates before passing on PinkGold Ltd to the next generation of pink-gold humans.