Services

Drawing on my experience and insight of working as a cultural CEO over 20 years, I provide advice and support in the following areas: 

Visioning: 

Vision statements, mission statements, purpose statements. This can get cluttered very quickly. I can help you find your True North or, in other words, the answers to the questions, what are we fighting for? for whom? why? how? and when will be know we have got there? As a CEO of ‘for-purpose’ organisations,  I have been asked many times, what’s your ‘Theory of Change’? I can help you to discover yours.  

• Partnership and consortium opportunities 
• Political, economic and cultural horizon scanning 
• What’s your Theory of Change? 
• Mission, vision and purpose 
• Organisational readiness 

Strategic planning: 

A successful strategic plan is one that is designed for impact. I draw on logic mapping to engage people from various roles and backgrounds, expose hidden assumptions and document important decisions. I work collaboratively to facilitate effective planning, identify new business opportunities and support prioritisation.  Strategic plans now need to reflect the changing public attitudes to the environment and to social issues. A Plan that embraces sustainability, together with equality, inclusion and participation goals, will help to future-proof the plan with stakeholders and community.    

I can draw on my 20-year experience of being a CEO to help define and articulate your organisation’s strategic needs and aspirations. 

Capital transformation and renewal: 

It has never been more important to ensure that your built assets are delivering what you need and that your proposed capital works are targeted and aligned with your organisation’s strategic goals. The master plan is a dynamic, long-term planning document that provides a conceptual layout to guide the future growth and development of your destination attraction, organisation and services.   I have overseen major capital transformation in London, Glasgow and Auckland NZ that has driven access, visitation and engagement in line with and even exceeding business case predictions. In each of these projects, digital transformation has been a key element in that it also creates permanent assets and resources for the future that will require long-term investment. In all of this, I am acutely conscious to mitigate the risk of spending money on projects that will not deliver the best long-term outcomes and return on investment. 

Service review: 

To be sustainable financially and to ensure alignment with strategic priorities, organisations must keep a focus on the effectiveness and efficiency of their service delivery. Sometimes they need to invest in capability building, in the re-shaping or sometimes in the resizing of business operations.  As a CEO of four different institutions, I have extensive experience of enhancing organisational capability and effectiveness in both large and small teams.  

Museum interpretation: 

The development of new galleries, special exhibitions and activity space is the lifeblood of every museum and gallery. No change or no plans for change can result in visitor dissatisfaction and loss of relevancy. Too often permanent galleries continue well beyond the planned lifecycle and their content is at risk of becoming out of date or culturally inappropriate. In this scenario, the physical and digital display infrastructure deteriorates, collections remain inaccessible and their care is jeopardised. In the past content was selected exclusively by the organisation; increasingly today it is co-curated with communities of interest and external knowledge holders.  However, these projects, whether new galleries or special exhibitions, are a major investment and so the projects of the future must be designed for optimal modularity, collections rotation, community co-creation, compelling storytelling and for environmental sustainability.  

I have decades of experience authoring and reviewing interpretation plans, exhibition storyboards and content proposals. I can help your organisation find the right-sized model and solutions it needs for its content renewal and guide its project development.  

Policies and procedures: 

To take one policy area, collections development has become one of the most contested areas of modern museum and gallery practice. Museums were founded with a mission to acquire, not dispose. Today, the ability to manage collections effectively has reached crisis proportions. It seems as if you can never have enough money to care for all your collections equally well. In response, museums are shifting their curatorial model, objectively reviewing their collecting policies, prioritising acquisition in line with their mission, strategy and audiences, and interrogating the justification to retain certain asset classes. These institutions are committed to growing their collections sustainably and actively engage in planned dispersal and disposal in line with industry protocols.   I have extensive experience of museum policy and procedure in the UK and overseas and can support you in your own collections development planning, in addition to assisting you in all areas of operational policy, process and risk management.   

Having been a policy advisor to government on cultural property policy and a CEO of museums in New Zealand and Australia, I am also very familiar with the challenges, risks and opportunities involved in the repatriation and restitution of cultural property and human remains to source communities around the world and can advise and support organisations involved in this important work.   

Mentoring: 

Today’s museum leaders face an increasingly complex operating environment, tasked with delivering on growing audience and stakeholder expectations and navigating uncertainty. These roles are by definition lonely and the learning curve is never complete. Leaders will be told repeatedly, ‘what got you here, won’t get you there!'

Having been in the CEO seat myself, leading four very different organisations in the UK and overseas, I can help identify individual needs, diagnose organisational dynamics, broaden perspectives and assist with leadership transitions. In actively listening and challenging constructively, I can help leaders to sharpen their skills, navigate complex situations and improve decision making.  

• Mentoring support for leadership and senior management  

Board advisory: 

As a CEO who has worked with multiple Boards in government, universities and in the charity sector, I understand the intricacies of governance and can offer comprehensive advice to enhance Board performance and alignment with strategic goals. My experience enables me to provide clarity on the respective roles of trustees and executive staff, to support a positive Board culture and to advise on minimizing risk and effective compliance. I can also encourage and support Boards to look beyond immediate challenges and envision future opportunities. 

My approach: 

I offer a tailored service that meets the specific and agreed needs of the client. Normally this will involve a discovery phase of desk-based research, on-site and online interviews with key individuals, together with facilitated group discussion. This process is designed to be collaborative and will be staged by agreement.  I work by listening actively and challenging constructively with the aim of building a strong and trusted working relationship.