Members’ Meeting - Place based cultural infrastructure: needs and opportunities
Hosted by B:Music at Symphony Hall
Join us for a breakfast panel discussion to understand the current landscape as well as needs and opportunities for cultural infrastructure in the West Midlands.
We will be facilitating hybrid joining access for those members who cannot attend in person.
This meeting is for Culture Central Members only. If you’re not a member, you can find out about joining and membership options here.
Meet the Panellists
Co-founding Partner, We Made That
Oliver co-founded We Made That in 2006 and brings focus to planning for, and delivering, meaningful economic, social and environmental change in the places that need it. He is dedicated to delivering public good, with an attention to detail in addressing strategic and complex briefs.
He has a multidisciplinary skillset with degrees in both design and architecture. He has led innovative urban scale masterplans, ambitious development frameworks and flagship cultural infrastructure studies and projects, including many across the West Midlands region. Oliver places great value on independent, trusted and thorough intelligence in guiding and making meaningful change.
Oliver is a member of a number of design review panels for local authorities in London and the South East. He is appointed to the Greater London Authority’s Specialist Assistance Team to help with the shaping and realisation of Mayoral projects across the capital and lectures internationally.
Chief Executive Officer, Shakespeare Birthplace Trust
Rachael is the Chief Executive Officer of the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust in Stratford-upon-Avon. She is currently launching a new creative vision for the future of the Birthplace Trust as a globally connected museum of Shakespeare. Rachael has more than 25 years’ experience working in museums of varying size and scale, including as the inaugural Chief Executive of the Lottery funded project Delapre Abbey in Northamptonshire, prior to that with the National Trust in the Midlands and within local authority museum services in Warwickshire, Peterborough and Hampshire.
Strategic Lead ‑ Culture and Creative Economy, West Midlands Combined Authority
Having been brought up in a household with one parent that was a part-time sound technician and another that was a textile designer; and having worked for Youth & Music North-East promoting the performing arts to young people and a co-operative community music venue following a four-year design degree, Jim has been immersed in Culture from a very early age.
Having relocated from the North-East of England to the Thames Valley, Jim progressed through the Training & Enterprise Council, Business Link and Local Enterprise Partnership system, ending up as a Development Director in the latter two, during which time he secured a significant amount of funding to support the growth of the Creative Economy.
Having then been appointed as a sustainable urban regeneration expert in a major EU funded programme and supported a range of European cities to develop their Creative-Tech eco-systems, Jim set up his own economic development consultancy, working with a range of clients including Universities, Local Authorities, LEPs and national Arms-Length Bodies, developing partnership programmes, strategies and funding proposals.
From there, Jim returned to employment six years ago, initially supporting Basildon to develop its creative-tech economy, before joining the WMCA to oversee the development of high growth clusters before subsequently progressing into the his current role, as Strategic Lead for Culture and the Creative Economy.