Cultural Associates Oxford: entrepreneurial business thinking for the cultural and creative sectors
Bringing together unique, highly creative and expert teams to transform the cultural and creative sectors for the benefit of everyone.
For sometime I have been thinking about how I can share more widely the knowledge and expertise I have built up through a career spanning over 25 years working in the museum, arts and heritage sectors. My career has seen me work as a curator, manager, leader, coach and consultant across a range of different organisations, from small regional museums to sector stakeholder and advisory bodies, such as the Museums and Galleries Commission and the Museums Association, to a large-scale, highly complex multi-layered organisation that happen to have some of the best university collections and public engagement spaces in the world – the University of Oxford.
I’ve been able to build up a network of engaged and knowledgeable colleagues from diverse disciplines and backgrounds who share my passion for the cultural sector, and who want to work together to inspire entrepreneurial thinking and ideas to create a sector which is inclusive and engaging for all people.
Launching Cultural Associates Oxford (CAO) this September is an exciting new era for us. Our Associates include cultural professionals, artists, academics, researchers and business consultants who have been working together for many years, in different guises, to deliver transformational programmes with impact.
We have enjoyed setting out our ideas, establishing vision and aims and values, and are delighted to already be putting them into practice with new clients.
At its heart CAO offers a distinctive take on management consultancy for the cultural and creative sectors. But more than that – we all want to make a difference, creating connections and partnerships that last beyond a business proposition or project.
As our business grows we want it to be more than transactional and aim to establish the Cultural Thinking Members Network – a forum for cultural and creative leaders and organisations to come together and:
share and test ideas
scan the horizon and gain insight into new societal trends
develop ideas for addressing new challenges
and build engaging and inclusive partnerships designed to support change.
We would love to hear about any ideas you want to take forward, or any organisational challenge you are currently facing.
