The Cultural Leadership Programme have announced the first Women to Watch list
Here it is, the 50 top women in the arts and cultural industries chosen by their peers, devised to be a discreet battering ram that will help shatter that apparently impermeable glass ceiling.
The Women to Watch list is compiled by an independent panel chaired by Woman’s Hour’s Jenni Murray – the other judges were Kwame Kwei Armah, Wayne McGregor, Liz Forgan, Sarah Weir and Jenny Sealey and is the first of what will probably be a biennial list. It’s all under the auspices of the Arts Council’s Cultural Leadership Programme.
There are plenty of known names there – you might pick out Claire Whitaker of Serious, Maria Balshaw of the Whitworth Gallery, Roanne Dods of Rose Orange (previously of the Jerwood Foundation) or Vanessa Reed of the PRS For Music Foundation – and you’re bound to fail to find a few you think should be there. Where is Jude Kelly of the South Bank, for instance, or Gwyn Miles of Somerset House, or Julia Peyton-Jones of the Serpentine, or Munira Mira the London mayor’s office, or Sue Hoyle of the Clore Leadership Programme?
The truth is that the list could only be compiled from nominations, called for in November with a deadline of January 29 for an announcement on March 10 to coincide with International Women’s Day. “I think next time we might allow ourselves a bit more time – there was a great rush of applicants on the last morning” says Hilary Carty.
But these are not those at the pinnacle of what their careers ought to amount to; they are the women whose peers and the panel believe have more to offer, if only they get the opportunity.
As it was, there were almost 200 nominations and the criteria were that they should be emerging to mid career leaders – “women who have the potential to make a national impact in senior leadership roles such as artistic director, chief executive, managing director, chair or organisational lead” – and they should be women working within the creative or cultural sector within the U.K.
Jenni Murray says the judging was no push over, working from a long list of about 100. “We had an afternoon of tough debate, it was a very hard fought for list.
“It’s a very good range of age, career and ethnic background. We were given no criteria. We were hoping we would make up a good range of women at the beginning of their careers and some in the middle who were suffering from the difficulty we all know of getting further in our careers.
“There are plenty of very talented women in the arts, but too many who just aren’t making it to the top. I’m not much of a fan of positive discrimination because that can be counter-productive, but I do approve of positive action and I think that includes helping women with the right support and training to get to the top. I hope it can have an impact” she says.
So, not a list of role models in a rather passive process of giving young wannabes icons to aim to emulate. These women do not want to be like anyone else, they simply want to be allowed to do the best they can.
The list is the brainchild of the CLP’s director Hilary Carty who was increasingly frustrated at seeing, in a sector widely thought to be fairer to women than most others, how many women were driving arts and cultural organisations and how few were at the top of them. “If we want the UK to have dynamic creative and cultural industries and compete globally” says her chair, David Kershaw, “we must take this issue seriously and create an environment within the sector which encourages and recognises the work of emerging women leaders”. Despite culture being worth £56.5 billion and 8% of the overall UK economy, there is a lack of investment in leadership in the creative and cultural sector generally and in particular in the talents of women.
Carty is pleased with the list, however. “I’m delighted with it, especially the range” she says. “When you start you can’t be sure how a thing like this is going to take off, whether people will get the idea or not, but I think this shows that they are.”
At the RIBA launch of the list Carty had gathered a team to give some on the spot guidance and mentoring to all the nominees, but what she wants is for the group itself to create a mentoring network that will be self-supporting.
One of those on the list is Pim Baxter, deputy director the National Portrait Gallery, was brought across the river eight years ago from the National Theatre where she had been head of marketing. “I am delighted to be on this list and to be in such amazing company as the other 49 individuals” she says. “What I think it shows is this is just one set of 50, but that there are so many women doing great jobs in the cultural sector, who are also ‘women to watch’ (and of course some are going to be better at promoting themselves than others), that one could think of many, many more groups of 50, even amongst ones own colleagues or teams”, and she says she’s keen to make use of some of the mentoring on offer.
Jane Finnis runs the very successful Culture 24 website, set up by Chris Smith when he was culture secretary ten years ago. At 44 and with two small children, she feels she is nowhere near fulfilling potential, but where can she go to do that?
“When you’re running an organisation like this it’s very rare to get professional feedback, particularly when you’re at the top of a little tree” she says. “It’s tough, and it’s good to have some recognition from people I have respect for. You don’t realise how few opportunities there are for women to get training and mentoring, and that that’s included in this scheme that is very exciting. Women are used to being advocates for the things they feel passionate about, and I they need to apply some of that advocacy skill to themselves.”
That’s a theme of which Jenni Murray has recently become aware. Her son, currently in Australia, wanted her help in creating a CV. “I realised I didn’t know where to start. And when he turned to his Australian mates they came up with something completely different from what I would have.
“The truth is that the British don’t know how to show off, they don’t shout about themselves, and British women are ten times worse - they don’t want to push themselves forward. It’s something we have to get over.”
Fifty Women to Watch…
Bridget Nicholls
Director, PESTIVAL, Southbank.
Claire Whitaker
Director, Serious.
Daisy Heath
Head of planning, National Theatre.
Delia Barker
Senior officer, dance, Arts Council England, London Region.
Emma Stenning
Executive director, Bristol Old Vic.
Emma Underhill
Director and curator, UP Projects.
Freda Matassa
Freelance museum consultant and art collections manager.
Gail Parmel
Artistic director, ACE dance & music.
Geraldine Collinge
Director of events and exhibitions, Royal Shakespeare Company
Helen Macnamara
Deputy director, future planning, Department for Culture Media and Sport
Hermione Way
Founder of newspepper.com and techfluff.tv.
Indy Hunjan
Director, Kala Phoo.
Jane Finnis
Director, Culture24.
Jacqui O’Hanlon
Director of education, Royal Shakespeare Company.
Jenni Lewin-Turner
Director and creative producer, Urbanflo Creative Consultancy.
Carol Bell
Head of culture and major events NewcastleGateshead Initiative.
Juliana Farha
Founder and Managing Director, Dilettante Music Limited.
Julie Tait
Director, Kendal Arts International.
Kate Bellamy
Head of strategy & communications, National Museum Directors’ Conference.
Kate McGrath
Director, Fuel.
Laura Sillars
Programmes Director, FACT (Foundation for Art and Creative Technology).
Liz Pugh
Producer, Walk the Plank.
Lucy Worsley
Chief curator, Historic Royal Palaces.
Maria Balshaw
Director. Whitworth Gallery, Manchester.
Maria Oshodi
Artistic Director, Extant.
Maxine Miller
Library and information manager, Iniva (Institute of International Visual Arts).
Cathy Woolley
Participation producer, Southbank Centre.
Melanie Abrahams
Director, Renaissance One and Tilt; guest curator, Bluecoat.
Moira Buffini
Writer-in-residence, National Theatre.
Nike Jonah
Senior diversity officer, Decibel project manager.
Pim Baxter
Deputy director and director of communications and development, National Portrait Gallery.
Purni Morell
Head of studio, National Theatre.
Rachel Holmes
Head of literature and spoken word, Southbank Centre.
Rachel Millward
CEO and creative director, Birds Eye View Film Festival.
Rebecca Dawson
Vision 2010 project manager, Arts Council England.
Roanne Dods
Director, Rose Orange.
Ruth Daniel
Co-founder and director, Un-Convention and Fat Northern Records.
Claire Cunningham
Independent choreographer and performer.
Ruth Gill
Head of interpretation, Historic Royal Palaces.
Ruth Gould
CEO, DaDa – Disability & Deaf Arts.
Sally Goldsworthy
Director, Discover.
Sarah Munro
Artistic manager, Tramway.
Seonaid Daly
Producer, Glasgow Film Festival.
Sharnita K Athwal
Director, Shaanti Live: Music: Play!
Owner, The Hockley Bar & Kitchen.
Sharon Watson
Artistic director, Phoenix Dance Theatre.
Siobhán Bales
Managing director, bgroup.
Sophie Thomas
Founding director, thomas.matthews communication design.
Theresa Heskins
Artistic director, New Vic Theatre.
Clare Hudson
Founder and managing director, In4merz.com;
managing director, Hudson PR.
Vanessa Reed
Co-director, PRS For Music Foundation.
