Charlie Tims is a researcher interested in cultural policy and cities. He has authored briefings, evaluations and strategies for, among others, The European Commission, The European Cultural Foundation, The Burberry Foundation and the British Council. He has written a series of pamphlets for the think-tank Demos, including People Make Places: Growing the Public Life of Cities

Daisy Froud
is a strategist specialising in community engagement and participatory design. Having started her career in community-led regeneration and environmental campaigning, in 2003 Daisy co-founded architecture practice AOC, which built a reputation for “a committed engagement with communities, clients and parts of the city” (FT, 2008) and was twice shortlisted for the Young Architect of the Year Award. Since 2007 she has taught on the history and theory of spatial politics at The Bartlett School of Architecture, and in 2011 completed a visiting professorship at Yale. Daisy sits on the advisory Design Panel for High Speed 2, and the Design Review panel for the London Borough of Bexley. She is a Design Advocate for the Mayor of London, a Built Environment Expert for Design Council CABE, an Academician of the Academy of Urbanism, and in 2014 was shortlisted for The AJ’s Emerging Woman Architect of the Year Award.

Hadrian Garrard founded Create London in 2012 and is the CEO and Artistic Director. The charity explores how artists can contribute to life in cities. He has been a juror for the Olympic Delivery Authority arts commissions, the Oxford Samuel Beckett Theatre Awards and Art on the Underground, and he chairs the Bank of America Merrill Lynch art selection committee. He is a board member of London’s Open School East, Blackhorse Workshop, Glasgow’s Baltic Street Adventure Playground and an Associate Executive Producer of You Me Bum Bum Train.

Dr Harriet Harriss is an award-winning designer, ideation facilitator, Clore Fellow (2016–17), a published author and a senior tutor in architecture and interior design at the Royal College of Art. Harriet’s workshops and hackathons are strongly informed by design-thinking intelligence, data-driven future trends and real-world experience. Her problem-based, inter-disciplinary expertise enables her to build bridges between organisations and sectors that facilitate innovative partnerships and new market opportunities, as well as enrich and often reboot organisational strategies.

John Holden is a Visiting Professor at the University of Leeds, and an Honorary Professor of the University of Hong Kong. He was Head of Culture at the think tank Demos for 8 years, where he remains an Associate, and has been involved in numerous projects working with governments, agencies, cities and national and local organisations. John is the author of many works including The Ecology of Culture and All Together. John is a Trustee of the Hepworth, Wakefield, and of the Clore Leadership Programme, and a member of the European Expert Network on Culture.

John Kieffer has over thirty years’ experience in the UK and international cultural policy, arts programming, creative industries development and the music industry. He has programmed festivals, written books and held senior roles at the Arts Council, Sound & Music, the British Council and the London Docklands Development Corporation. He is currently the Chair of Situations UK and Longplayer, and also a trustee of Artsadmin and the BBC Performing Arts Fund.

John Newbigin is the Chair of Creative England. As Special Advisor to the Minister for Culture, Rt Hon Chris Smith MP, he helped develop the UK government’s first policies for the creative industries in the 1990s. He is a member of the Creative Industries Council; Chairman of the British Council’s Advisory Group for Arts and Creative Economy; and member of the Advisory Board of the Institute for Creative and Cultural Entrepreneurship at Goldsmiths. He has also worked as a youth worker, a journalist and an illustrator.

Lois Stonock is a curator and consultant interested in business models, networks and structures which support art, community and enquiry. She is founder of the Associates. Among others she has worked with the British Council, Bold Tendencies, Tropical Isles, Lewisham Arthouse and the Folkestone Triennial. Her ongoing project Unorganised Response has produced a series of exhibitions and articles researching the development, movement and institutionalisation of artist led networks in the Syrian diaspora. Previously Lois was responsible for the Arts Programme for Bloomberg Philanthropy in Europe, Middle East and Asia and founder of Stonock Ltd.

Mark Suggitt is a freelance cultural consultant. He has held senior posts and led a range of major capital projects. Mark was previously Director of Derwent Valley Mills World Heritage Site in Derbyshire, Head of Bradford Museums & Galleries, Director of St Albans Museums and Assistant Director of Yorkshire & Humberside Museums Council. He was also Keeper of Social History at York Castle Museum and Assistant Keeper of Social History at Salford Museums & Galleries. He is currently Chair of Impressions Gallery in Bradford. Mark has published and lectured widely on museums and cultural management throughout the UK and Europe.

Mark Williams MBE co-founded Heart ‘n Soul in 1986 and is the Artistic Director and CEO. Throughout the last thirty years he has been central to the organisation’s strategic development and has helped take it from a locally based touring company to an internationally respected creative organisation, producing music, clubs, live art, dance and films by artists with learning disabilities and in collaboration with non-learning disabled artists.

Peter Jenkinson has worked for over 30 years in the cultural and creative sector, passionately advocating and acting for deep change across the cultural and political landscape alongside a commitment to building intelligent democracy, civic agency and social justice. As an independent cultural change agent based in London he works in the UK and internationally including as a founding director of Civic, as advisor to and facilitator at the Salzburg Global Seminar, as an associate of the Compass progressive politics network, and as UK Ambassador to The Alternativet, the cultural~political party in Denmark. Prior to these adventures Peter has had a distinguished and award-winning career working across the arts and culture, including his role as advisor on the Post-Conflict Art Programme in the Derry~Londonderry, Northern Ireland and core member of the city’s Bid Team to be the first UK City of Culture in 2013, co-founder of Culture+Conflict, founding director of the Creative Partnerships creativity in learning schools programme across England, the first of its kind in the world, and, as founding director, the initiation and delivery of the world-class, The New Art Gallery Walsall.

Sara Selwood is an independent cultural analyst, research and writer. Having previously worked as an art historian and curator of contemporary visual art, much of her current work focuses on cultural policy and the public sector. She currently edits the journal Cultural Trends, which champions the need for better evidence on the cultural sector. She was also formerly a member of the Mayor of London’s Cultural Strategy Group and Chair of its Cultural Policy Reference Group.

Shelagh Wright works with a diverse range of people and projects around the world on cultural and creative economy policy, sustainable social practice and new leadership. She is a passionate internationalist and frequently works with the British Council to support young creative makers and advises on culture and development issues. Amongst many things, she is a co-founder of Civic, a Director of the Together Foundation and ThreeJohnsandShelagh, an Associate of the Culture+Conflict initiative, faculty of Salzburg Global Seminar and a UK Ambassador to the Alternativet Party in Denmark. Her publications include: Creativity Money Love; Where does it Hurt?; After the Crunch; So, What Do You Do?; Making Good Work and Design for Learning. Shelagh has led programmes of work on policy and practice in the UK and internationally, was a contributor to the Creative Britain strategy and a member of the EU Expert Working Group on the Creative Industries. She is also on the boards of several UK arts and cultural organisations.

Steve Moffitt is the CEO of A New Direction. A New Direction is the key strategic body for connecting young Londoners with the city’s creative and cultural resources. The organisation commissions research, campaigns for access to more and better cultural education for young people and designs and runs programmes in partnership with schools, local authorities and businesses. Steve worked for English National Opera as Head of ENO Baylis between 1996 and 2002 and was Artistic Director and Associate Director of Theatre Venture between 1989 and 1996. Steve is a Trustee of People United and a Director of the AMSI(Arts and Media School Islington) Trust.

Tom Dyckhoff is a writer, broadcaster, historian and enthusiast about architecture, cities, design and places. He presents BBC2’s The Great Interior Design Challenge, and writes and presents The Design Dimension, a regular series on design for BBC Radio 4. Tom has written and presented many series and one-off documentaries for British television and radio, including Channel 4’s The Secret Life of Buildings; he has written a weekly column for The Guardian newspaper’s Weekend magazine since 2001, and, from 2003 to 2011, was architecture critic for The Times. Tom has also written widely for international publications including GQ, Wallpaper, New Statesman and Domus; and has taught at various universities. Tom is an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects, and has been an honorary research associate at the Bartlett Faculty of the Built Environment, University College London, a trustee of the Architecture Foundation and the Arts Council’s architecture committee, and sat on the national shortlisting jury for the Stirling Prize for architecture from 2008 to 2011. In 2013 he was a judge for the Stirling Prize finalists. His first book, The Age of Spectacle: Adventures in Architecture and the 21st-Century City (2017), is published by Penguin Random House.

Tom Keeley is an architectural historian working between architecture, geography, landscape and culture through writing, situated research and printed matter. He has previously worked for organisations including The Architecture Foundation and Storefront for Art and Architecture (New York, USA), and his work is held in the collections of the National Art Library at the V&A, and the School of Architecture Library at Princeton University. He teaches at a number of universities including Central Saint Martins and Kingston University.

Verity-Jane Keefe is a visual artist, working predominantly within the public realm, using moving image, text and installation based work to explore the complex relationships between people and place. She is interested in the role and potential of the artist within urban regeneration, quite often working across a number of local authority departments. She has an ongoing, accidental love affair with Outer London; recent works include The Mobile Museum, The Wood Street Survey of Retail Trade and LEGOLAND. She is a visiting lecturer at Central Saint Martins.