From Public Sector to Private Purpose: Three Months at Think Beyond

December 12, 2025 – Maggie Hovassapian, Senior Consultant

It’s been three months since I joined Think Beyond, a big turn in my life and I’m as amazed as I could possibly be.

To give some context: I came from Argentina to do a Master’s Degree at LSE, and I stayed. I come from the public sphere, government and international organizations, and I’ve always thought of myself as a public sector person. I come from environments where the question driving every conversation is systemic change, thinking in terms of institutions and structures.

I learned to think through the lens of public versus private, with the public sector as the one ultimately responsible for development outcomes and the common good. Everything else fell into the private category: businesses, consultancies, NGOs, charities and grassroots organizations, not because they didn’t care about the common good, but because they didn’t formally hold that responsibility. It felt like common sense, no?

But after a while, all that systemic thinking started to feel disconnected from the day to day. Somehow the task got detached from the purpose. You begin thinking more about institutions than about people or communities. Recognising this, admitting it, opened space for some of the most interesting reflections.

Let me explain…

1. The place I get to live in

Someone on the team recently asked me what I liked most about this country. For a foreigner, it’s an easy question, because you see everything through new eyes. My answer was the number of shared spaces there are: clubs, parks, shared public environments, places of encuentro (to come together), places to be in community outside your house. How many local clubs are there? How many birthdays, first dates or random celebrations have you seen in parks?

Another brilliant example of this, in my humble opinion, is my ‘local’ pub. I challenge you, reader, to walk into a pub and not feel amazed by the diversity of generations and people you find there, and by the different things they’re doing: reading a book, celebrating with friends, playing board games, having a Sunday roast with family, or taking part in a pub quiz. A brilliant place of encuentro, shaped by communities themselves.

The UK is known for its social enterprises, charities, NGOs and strong community life, ‘the private’ as I call it, driving development. And the question that keeps following me is this: what comes first? Strong societies that drive development and demand the infrastructure and inputs to grow? Or a public sector that invests to enable ‘the private’ to develop? Maybe both happen at the same time…

2. The sector I get to be in

Over these last three months I’ve been moving through all kinds of events, summits, roundtables and panels, and a thought kept growing. It landed during one week in which I went to three completely different spaces: a roundtable on social impact convened and led by companies and academics, a panel on care policies. Yes, care, not health. And an interview with a Brazilian director during Environmental Justice Week, presenting the city of Brasília through the lens of integration between the city and animals.

A very random mix, but it all pointed to the same thing: innovation is happening in these ‘private’ spaces. There’s a lot happening out here, driven by this side of the world. I left that week incredibly inspired, and three reflections stayed with me, three questions I think we should focus on soon.

First, on technology: we often assume tech is always a yes for social challenges. But tech shapes how we relate to each other, so the real question is where and how to use it. Tech can amplify solutions, but it can’t replace the need to truly understand the context, the incentives and the challenge itself.

So how do we work with tech?

Cliché, I know, but we can start by actually understanding it. Second, on participation: at the care policy event I kept noticing who was in the room and wondering who speaks, who listens who gets to lead these conversations, and ultimately shape what comes next.

Where is the youth in all of this?

And finally, on integration: hearing a fellow Latin American speak about this city brought me back to a concept that has been with me for a long time. I keep confirming it’s always about integration, about how we bring different things, people, visions and sectors together so something new can emerge.

Maybe it’s the UK influence in me, a place where tradition and modernity seem to walk together, but the real question for me is this: how do we keep creating this kind of integration so we can build new solutions to new or persisting challenges?

3. The place I get to work in – surprise!

Brilliantly, I ended up finding many of these answers in the place I get to work in. The sports industry shows, in the most concrete way, how a ‘private’-driven force and public frameworks and investment meet and shape each other.

That mix is what turns sport into an institution here, not in a formal or abstract way, but in the sense that both sides reinforce each other. Yes, institutions. Somehow, I’ve found myself right back at the beginning of this text… just with more clarity now.

Sport starts in communities: in the clubs you see in every neighbourhood, in families, in routines, in local identity. Here, the youth is everywhere. Sport grows from people. It’s sustained by them. It’s part of everyday life.

But it also becomes something bigger because there is a shared understanding that sport can drive development and social change. Complementarily, the public side steps in, supporting it, investing, and building the conditions to scale its impact. That’s where private force and public purpose meet, and where sport becomes what it is here.

So… what more is there to add?

I don’t think it can get better than this when it comes to doing this work.

I’ll let you know how it goes. In the meantime, big shout-out to the incredible place I get to work at.