Untangling your knotty moments
Nataliya Deleva
Interim and fractional brand, marketing and digital engagement leadership
I lead brand, marketing and digital engagement for charities, and have done for more than twenty years, at Barnardo's, Macmillan Cancer Support, WaterAid and Ronald McDonald House UK.
Now I work with charities that need senior marketing leadership but not always a permanent hire: as an interim during a vacancy, as a fractional marketing director a few days a week, or leading a defined piece of work from start to finish.
Whatever the brief, I start the same way: by pausing to define the real knot and shape the right question at the core, before finding the answers. Understanding and naming what's actually going on is sometimes the most difficult part, but this is what makes the untangling that follows quicker and far more likely to hold.
89%
brand awareness at Barnardo's, 2% above target
£3m
raised for disadvantaged communities in 18 months through the Barnardo's × Co-op partnership
2.3m
engagements for Macmillan's #LifeWithCancer campaign, four times the previous year
Each of these results was achieved in a collaborative, cross-functional and integrated way.
Services
These are some of the knotty moments I most often help charities and purpose-led organisations untangle.
01 Senior marketing leadership, when you need it
A vacancy at the top of the function, a leader on leave, or a talented team with nobody senior owning the strategy. I step in as an interim, or as a fractional marketing director, a day or two a week: holding the strategy, leading the team, managing agencies, and reporting to your leadership and board.
02 A brand refresh or an integrated campaign launch
From brand strategy and creative development through to launch and, crucially, adoption across every channel and team. At Ronald McDonald House UK, I led the launch and adoption of a new brand in under nine months, including a new website and a multi-channel campaign built to raise awareness and support income growth.
03 A marketing and digital engagement audit, with a roadmap you can act on
If you sense something needs to change and want clarity on where to focus, the Marketing and Digital Engagement Audit & Roadmap is the place to start. I audit your marketing and digital engagement across three areas: strategy and brand; channels, content and supporter journeys; and team structure, skills and ways of working, including how ready you are for AI and how accessible your content really is. You get a board-ready roadmap of prioritised, actionable recommendations.
04 Team structure, skills and ways of working
Many charities have capable people in structures that no longer fit. I audit skills and team design, recommend structures that match your strategy and budget, and co-design change with the people it affects: at Ronald McDonald House UK, the restructure I led brought key skills in-house and morale rose. I also build integrated, cross-team ways of working, so marketing, fundraising, content, communications and services deliver to a single narrative and shared goals, the approach behind Barnardo's Child Poverty campaign.
05 Responsible AI strategy and adoption
Most marketing teams are already using AI, often without much training or a clear understanding of how to use it ethically and responsibly. Used in the wrong way, AI can lead to low-quality content, data protection and safeguarding risks, embedded bias, and misleading or inaccurate content. That isn't what supporters and funders expect from charities, and it can quickly erode trust.
My approach is grounded in ethics, safeguarding, and inclusion. I help charities use AI responsibly and strategically, always with a human at the helm and clear accountability.
I can develop a practical AI framework that is rooted in your organisational strategy, rather than treating AI as the latest shiny new tool. I also support teams to identify meaningful use cases that align with your charity's plans and ambitions, helping AI become a practical enabler rather than an end in itself.
How I work
My approach is guided by the belief that, first, we need to understand and define the real challenge, or knotty moment, and how it's blocking the impact we want to achieve before we attempt to untangle it. That sometimes requires asking difficult questions and helping leadership stay with the reality of where things actually are.
From there, I work in collaboration with your team and across the wider organisation. At Ronald McDonald House Charities UK, I enabled cross-functional collaboration through new workflows and project-based ways of working that improved campaign delivery and strengthened long-term collaboration. At Barnardo's, I led and mentored a multidisciplinary team through organisational change. Co-creation runs through everything I do, and every engagement leaves the function stronger than I found it, with a clearer strategy, better ways of working, and a team that owns the results.
I also focus on removing barriers to participation, staying curious, and embracing innovation. The marketing I lead is inclusive and accessible by design, and I help teams adopt AI with confidence in a responsible, ethical and strategic way.
Most recently at Ronald McDonald House UK, I led the launch and adoption of a new brand in under nine months, including a new website and a multi-channel campaign, alongside a team restructure that brought key skills in-house.
Nataliya brings a valuable and rare combination of strategic thinking, pragmatism and deep care for people. I was immediately impressed by how quickly she got to grips with enormous complexity. Her lack of ego and laser-sharp focus on the bigger goal meant that we were able to challenge each other and have honest conversations in a way that always felt constructive and focused on the best outcome.
I always trusted Nataliya’s judgement and steer. She led with ambition, but also with empathy and integrity. She has an impressive and continually evolving specialist skillset, an enthusiasm for all things digital, a passion for equity and inclusion, and particular expertise in accessibility.
If some of this sounds like a knotty moment your organisation is facing, I'd love to help.
Let's chat