For the past 20 years, I've developed and delivered creative projects with cultural and social impacts for clients from across the education, culture, heritage, health and community sectors. My passion is working with communities and organisations to put people at the heart of how the places that we love and live in are co-designed to support our needs - that they are relevant to us, unlock investment and are vibrant as a result. As the Executive Director at The Bowes Museum, I am leading the modern-day transformation of this incredible museum following a challenging few years to ensure its relevance and sustainability. I started in post in mid-2022 and have reshaped the vision and mission to align with our founding 19th-century principles while reflecting our ambitions as a forward-thinking museum.I led major projects for Derby Museums, including the new Museum of Making at Derby Silk Mill, the site of the world's first factory. People are at the heart of shaping the vision for the new Museum of Making, getting hands-on, learning new skills and sharing skills with others to expand perspectives of what a museum is and can be. In this £20m project, we took the co-production, human-centred ethos and applied it to a major capital development, maintaining both integrity to the approach that has given it its stand-out nature. Despite the challenges of Covid-19 I steered the completion of the project and delivered against the resources and stakeholder expectations. The Museum of Making opened in 2021 and was shortlisted for UK Art Fund Museum of the Year. In 2024, it was shortlisted for the European Museum of the Year. I am the UK lead for the UK Creative Community Fellows Programme (UK CCF), in partnership with US-based NAS, who originated the programme. Through this programme, we support emerging leaders across the country who are using arts and culture to make positive changes in their communities. I speak at conferences on themes of creative place-shaping and participatory practice, particularly human-centred design and co-production approaches. I also develop and deliver workshops for organisations who want to learn more about how they might embed human-centred approaches in their practice. I'm an advisory faculty member for annual programmes with NAS (USA) and have taught with the Center for Social Impact Strategy at the University of Pennsylvania. Specialities: Cultural development projects, learning & engagement, strategic partnerships, design-thinking/human-centred design, social and cultural entrepreneurship.