Simon has been working as a development consultant for 37 years. Working in numerous countries, he increasingly used his academic knowledge of Political Economy to help understand why ideas born in developed economies often do not fit well in developing environments. He has undertaken a large number of PEA assignments across a wide range of sectors and countries, but has combined this with a rich experience of project implementation and long term management in the field. This combination lies at the heart of the KDP idea – that it is not enough to know how to think politically. It is also necessary to know how to work politically, in order to achieve effective demand-driven development.​