Creative Entrpreneurship (Morning)
Pauline Tambling is Joint CEO of Creative & Cultural Skills and Managing Director of its National Skills Academy. Pauline has worked at Arts Council England in five senior roles with a wide range of responsibilities including investment and research as well as overseeing national programmes like Creative Partnerships. Pauline was previously Head of Education at the Royal Opera House. She co-founded Reseo, a European network, is currently chair of Shape Arts, a member of the Clore Leadership Programme Strategy Group, a trustee of Drama UK and a governor of the University of the Creative Arts.
Eze Vidra is the Head of Campus, Google’s dedicated space for technology startups in East London. Campus offers early stage startups work and event space, as well as access to an active community and mentorship programs. Before launching Campus, Eze spearheaded many of Google’s strategic partnerships in Commerce across EMEA, launching Google Shopping in Spain and Local Shopping in the UK. Before joining Google, Eze held leadership positions in product management at Shopping.com in Israel, Gerson Lehrman Group in New York, Ask.com in Silicon Valley and at AOL in London, where he was the Principal Product Manager for Search for Europe.
An Entrepreneur, Eze co-founded a mobile startup in Israel, developing text-input technology for mobiles in 2003, his widely-read blog, VC Cafe, on startups and venture capital in 2005, and most recently Techbikers, a collaboration of the startup community to raise money for children literacy, supporting Room to Read. He mentors startups at various accelerator programs including Seedcamp, Springboard, and Oxygen, and serves on the advisory board of BBC Labs, 88Mph (a Nairobi-based accelerator), and various early-stage startups. Eze holds an MBA from London Business School and a BA in Business and IT Management with distinction from IDC in Israel. You can follow his tweets at @ediggs.
Rashid Kasirye has built his online broadcast channel and business, Link Up TV, to be a creative & youth inspired online talent and entertainment outlet. The broadcast online channel specializes in unsigned and emerging talent as well as creating a thriving business for the 24 year old who is now a self made entrepreneur. The definition of self-made is to achieve success and recognition by your own efforts, though Rashid would never admit to his own success, the stats speak for themselves. As over 2 years Rashid has not only built a self-sustaining business, he’s carved an impressive imprint into the music industry for underground artists to showcase their talents as well as building a respected reputation for himself within the industry.
Auro Foxcroft is a designer and cultural entrepreneur, he is founder and director of Village Underground and curator and producer of numerous cultural events. Auro speaks and consults internationally on the creative industries; the development and operation of cultural centres, as well as the subject of social enterprise. Amongst other awards, his work placed him runner-up as the New Statesman Young Social Entrepreneur of the Year. Auro works with artists and creatives from around the world, and is currently engaged in establishing cultural centres in Berlin, Lisbon and New York, as well as cultural projects in the UK.
Andrew Senior is internationally recognised as a leading expert in the development of the creative economy, having worked in the field for over 15 years across a range of cultural and political environments, in emerging, developing and advanced economies. He is particularly interested in entrepreneurship, business finance, copyright and effective and informed policy
making for the sector. His knowledge and experience in mobilising the ‘creative industries’ to deliver to an international ‘cultural relations’ and ‘soft power’ agenda is unique. He is a Director of Andrew Senior Associates Ltd, which is based in Manchester,
a company that he founded in 2010. In 2012, as the company’s portfolio of work in Latin America and the Caribbean grew, the company established a regional base in Bogota, Colombia. Members of the company’s Advisory Board include Lord Smith of Finsbury, Sir Chris Powell and Professor Elan Closs Stephens. The company has an international network of Associates, who bring their own expertise and skills to further enhance the company’s portfolio of services. Currently Associates can be found in Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, India, Indonesia, Italy, Kenya, Malaysia, Nigeria, South Africa, Tanzania, the UK and the USA. Associates range from leading industry figures, to individuals with specialist skills in specific sectors or in areas such as creative business start-ups, economic mapping, tourism, conflict resolution, business ethics, technology, and luxury brands.
Breakout Session Leaders
Mary-Alice Stack is Director of ArtCo Projects at Arts Council England, and responsible for the programmes of work delivered through the Arts Council’s trading subsidiary company, ArtCo Trading Ltd.
Since joining Arts Council England in 2005, Mary-Alice has driven forward the development and delivery the Arts Council’s two consumer credit schemes Own Art and Take it away, along with the recently launched Creative Industry Finance programme which offers a combination of business support and access to finance for creative industry enterprises.
Nancy Groves is editor of the Guardian Culture Professionals Network and Guardian Higher Education Network, which connect professionals to news, views, creative thinking – and each other. Previously she worked as a freelance arts and features journalist for a range of print and online publications including The Independent, The Guardian, IdeasTap and Whatsonstage.com, and as arts reporter for the Newsquest South London group.
Samuel Gordon is an entrepreneur passionate about supporting Tech City companies. He currently runs “First Year In”, a new start-up that trains graduates to be more productive in small businesses, and has been gathering insight on Tech City and building links in the area since 2012. He also recently initiated TechCityHR, a voluntary networking group to help Tech City start-ups make more of their collective talent. He holds an MSc from Oxford University and worked as a project manager at Tesco Stores Ltd before taking the plunge to start his own business.
Creative Question Time (Afternoon)
Charlotte Higgins is the chief arts writer of the Guardian. One of Britain’s foremost writers on culture, she contributes to the Guardian’s news, features, op-ed, literary and arts sections. Charlotte began her career in journalism on Vogue magazine in 1995 and, via the World of Interiors magazine, moved to the Guardian in 1997. She joined the arts desk in 1999, and the following year became classical music editor.
In 2004 Charlotte moved to the Guardian’s newsroom to become arts correspondent, reporting cultural news from Britain and abroad, including Venezuela, China and the Palestinian Territories. Charlotte is the author of two books on classical subjects: Latin Love Lessons, and It’s All Greek to Me. She won the 2010 Classical Association prize and in 2011 she was elected to the council of the Roman Society. She is an associate member of the Corpus Christi College Centre for the Study of Greek and Roman Antiquity, at the University of Oxford. Her third book, Under Another Sky: Journeys in Roman Britain, is published by Jonathan Cape on 25 July.
She is a regular contributor to BBC radio and chair of live panel events. She has served on a number of cultural prize and awards juries, including the Art Fund museums prize. Charlotte is a keen amateur violinist and chamber musician.
She can be found on Twitter (@chiggi). Her blog is at guardian.co.uk/charlottehiggins
Alison Wenham has spent over 35 years working in the music industry, and is one of the most experienced and well known practitioners in the business. She has worked in both the independent and the multinational sectors, gaining comprehensive experience of the advantages and disadvantages of independent versus multinational infrastructures, while developing a thorough knowledge of all aspects of the industry.
She has been Chairman and CEO of AIM since it was formed in 1998, and has guided it through growth in membership and influence. AIM members represent around 28% of the UK market and independents are the acknowledged creative backbone of the industry, developing new trends, new artists and adopting new technologies ahead of the multinationals. In December 2010, Alison was awarded an O.B.E for Services to the Creative Industries.
David Parrish is the author of the book ”T-Shirts and Suits: A Guide to the Business of Creativity”.
He helps creative people make their businesses and organizations even more successful by helping them to combine their creativity with smart business thinking using his T-Shirts and Suits® approach.
David works internationally as a specialist creative industries business adviser, consultant, trainer, speaker and writer.
His practical experience of leading and managing creative enterprises is complemented by academic qualifications, professional accreditations and membership of several management institutes.
Fabio Santos began his acting career at home in Salvador da Bahia, Brazil. Subsequently, he has worked extensively with young homeless people in Brazil, and developed community art projects in Germany, Holland, the UK and the US. He trained as a dancer at the Joffrey Ballet School in New York, the Conservatoire of Dance in Holland and the London Contemporary Dance School, where he acquired an MA in Contemporary Dance and Choreography. Fabio has worked on several projects for Lift (London International Festival of Theatre) and performed with the London Contemporary Dance School’s 4D. He also appeared in the Millennium Dome Central Show, The Lion King at the Lyceum Theatre and The Birds, directed by Kathryn Hunter at the National Theatre. Fabio is a guest lecturer at London’s Metropolitan University and has been Director of Project Phakama UK for the past five years.