Lynsey is a consultant with over 20 years of experience working across the global creative economy. She has gathered expertise from working in high profile roles for the British Council, Nesta, The Lighthouse and Creative Edinburgh. Lynsey has strong strategic and leadership skills and is bold in her thinking, building an international network and reputation for her pioneering work with creative hubs.
Lynsey has led on the development of over 100 projects and programmes in more than 40 countries across Africa, Europe, South America, South East Asia & Wider Europe, in order to advocate or support sustainable economies. She spearheaded the creation of the Creative Hubs & Communities portfolio, a brand-new global portfolio for the British Council. Her work in this area has been internationalised, adapted, translated and referenced all over the world, becoming a thought leader in the creative hubs space.
Previously, Lynsey was co-Founder and Executive Director of Creative Edinburgh, one of Europe’s largest creative hubs for the creative, cultural and tech sectors of Edinburgh. At the beginning of her career, she managed the Creative Entrepreneurs Club, one of Scotland’s first creative hubs at The Lighthouse. As a consultant, Lynsey has worked with Westminster Council, Edinburgh City and Renfrewshire Councils to lead on the development of creative network strategies and as an advocate for creative hubs to become part of a national strategy.
Lynsey has been responsible for shaping numerous enterprise programme offers for organisations like Nesta, Eden Project, British Council, Creative & Cultural Skills and Creative Spark and recently, she co-designed a brand-new global leadership programme in partnership with Clore Leadership.
Lynsey is therefore well versed in developing complex multi-stakeholder and multi-funded programmes with colleagues, partners, funders and audiences, both nationally and internationally from the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office; European Commission; Wellcome Trust; Google; Creative Scotland; Arts Council England and Arts Council Wales to Goethe-Institut; Hivos; Indigo Trust and over 1000 creative hubs across the globe. She has also led on the development of toolkits: Creative Hub Leader’s Toolkit, Creative HubKit, The Art of Hacking, Creative Hubs: ‘How to’ Guide and co-commissioned Creative Hubs: Understanding the New Economy.
Lynsey is an RSA Fellow, Board Member of The Stove Network, Partner of Shoesmith + Smith Associates and alumni member of Future Leaders.