About

Hello,

I'm Damon Strange and I formed Ex Nihilo Ltd in 2020 with a desire to help other organisations efficiently deliver successful projects and facilitate the embedding of strategic change.

I have spent the past decade or so employed in a variety of positions, and have expertise within Higher Education, Cultural Heritage & Local Government sectors. This has given me the knowledge and experience to work within a range of project and organisation types to support management, administration and core functions within your organisations. I have developed a comprehensive skill-set in the discipline of Project Management and related fields, gaining qualifications and certification as PRINCE2 Practitioner, Agile Project Management (AgilePM®) Practitioner, holding the Association for Project Management APMP qualification, Certified Scrum Master trained and AgilePgM Programme Management training. 

My approach to project management is to take the best elements from both Agile and waterfall methodologies to meet the needs of the organisation I am working with. I always aim to apply the right tools and techniques to the problem or the project to help you deliver successful projects. I will offer a flexible and tailored approach to project delivery, and believe that the level of rigidity when it comes to project management techniques applied should be applied in a proportionate measure to the type of subject matter or project in scope.  

My recent experience has been in managing projects and programmes in the field of Research Data Management (RDM), allowing the development of an extensive knowledge of systems and processes for safely securing and storing research data. I have a genuine thirst for knowledge, learning, and sharing information and I have worked on several academic outputs and papers, with further details available on ORCID.

I have worked with project and service managers, librarians and technical IT staff as well as with many fantastic researchers over this period. I have helped researchers to design and implement robust data management plans to ensure their research data outputs are not only held in a sustainable manner, but can be showcased to the world.  

My approach to developing working relationships is to adopt a positive, well-planned and knowledge-led approach to anything I do. 

"In working with Damon over a number of years, I have greatly appreciated the fact that he doesn't simply deliver highly efficient and effective project management, but that he has a very strong empathy for the project and community that he is working with and combines that with a striking ability to take the level of leadership and initiative that the project requires (without ever over-reaching)." 

Professor of Ancient History, University of Oxford

This website gives an overview and flavour of my experiences, the types of project I've been involved with and feedback from some fantastic individuals I've had the pleasure of providing services to over recent years within my client testimonials. But I am always open to new challenges, so do feel free to get in touch  if you wish to discuss further a future opportunity.

Best wishes, Damon.