Speakers

Nanet Beumer

Rijksmuseum

Nanet joined the Rijksmuseum as their Head of Digital in 2019.

One of her first projects was Operation Night Watch, where the museum live streamed the restoration of Rembrandt’s Night Watch.

Her department have played a key role in keeping the museum connected to the public during the Covid-19 crisis, and at Culture Geek she’ll share what they’ve learnt along the way.

Millie Carroll

York Museums Trust

Millie Carroll is currently the Digital Communications Officer at York Museums Trust.

She has a wide range of marketing and communications experience including roles at The Tetley Contemporary Art Gallery, Leeds, and the Yorkshire Sculpture Park, but her passion is creating and implementing social media campaigns.

In her two years at YMT, Millie has been instrumental in reshaping how the organisation thinks about digital platforms and how they can be used to bring YMT collections and stories to a diverse range of audiences through engaging online content. 

Lawrence Chiles

The National Gallery

Lawrence Chiles is Head of Digital Services at The National Gallery in London. He provides strategic leadership and heads interdisciplinary teams to deliver large-scale exhibitions, programmes and cross-platform projects.

Lawrence’s recent work includes taking The National Gallery into the Metaverse, and this is the work that he’ll be sharing at Culture Geek.

Chris Cloud

Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago

Chris Cloud is the Director of Marketing and Community Engagement at Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago where he is responsible for developing and executing omnichannel digital and traditional marketing strategies that increase brand awareness, drive visitation and ticket sales of performances and public programs and events.

Chris also leads the development of the museum’s community engagement strategy and implementation while playing an integral part in cultivating and maintaining partnerships across the city to diversify the audience of the MCA and its programmes.

Haydn Corrodus

Warm Street

Haydn is a Social Media Strategist & Planner with over 15 years of experience in social media and marketing. Haydn has previously worked with brands such as Coca-Cola and Unilever on award-winning experiential, social and digital marketing campaigns.

Until recently he was a Social Media consultant (Tech Champion) for the Arts Council England’s funded organisations and the arts and culture sector, he has worked with over 300+ organisations from England and America. This summer, he was invited to be a guest lecturer for the Royal Academy of Arts Executive Master’s programme.

Alongside his work within the arts, Haydn is also a founding partner of We Are Stripes, which works to increase opportunities in the creative industries for people from diverse ethnic backgrounds, working with the likes of Disney, Microsoft, The National Gallery, Hackney Empire and more on diverse programming and providing opportunities for diverse work and voices

Claire Doherty MBE

Galwad

Claire is a Creative and Executive Director with a particular focus in producing place-based, transformative arts projects internationally.

Known for her artistic direction and thought leadership in public art producing as well as ambitious multi-artform cultural programming, Claire has worked internationally with cities such as Oslo and Melbourne to develop long-term city strategies.

As Founder Director of the producing company Situations, Claire has also developed a comprehensive skills base in business acumen and executive leadership. From 2017-2019, she was Interim Director at Arnolfini.

In 2016, she was awarded MBE for Service to the Arts and is currently a Creative Director of GALWAD, pan-Wales project produced by Collective Cymru led by National Theatre Wales

Dr Peter Knowles

Smartify

Peter has over 10 years experience in cultural heritage interpretation as a producer and scriptwriter.

His work includes the award-winning Chatsworth multimedia tour and guides for institutions such as M+ and Royal Academy of Arts. Recently, Peter worked with Royal Museums Greenwich to create an audio experience based on their annual Fierce Queen’s event celebrating LGBTQ+ History Month.

Peter’s approach to production is hallmarked by a desire for a more contemporary approach to historic sites, giving emphasis to the people and communities living and engaging with the locations.

Tim Powell

Independent Producer & Creative Consultant

Producer & Creative Consultant. As a producer his work combines immersive technology, live performance and physical installations. As a consultant he helps organisations develop strategies for innovation and approaches to immersive storytelling.

He is currently Creative Entrepreneur in Residence at Reading University, and Consulting Producer for The Gunpowder Plot – a new feature length immersive historical experience.

Previously, as Head of the R&D Studio, for Historic Royal Palaces, he led projects spanning social media campaigns, online interactives, on-site installations, live performances and new immersive experiences – including the multiple award-winning The Lost Palace.

Hannah Price

Gunpowder Plot

Hannah is a creator of immersive events, theatre and VR experiences. As Creative Director of the Gunpowder Plot, the new 5 star reviewed immersive theatre and VR experience for Layered Reality, she worked across 8 event spaces including 3 VR spaces, an ambisonic sound room, a 360 projection mapped space and multiple live performance lead spaces.

She is an award winning freelance theatre director, founder and previous Co-Artistic Director of Theatre Uncut and has directed theatre and immersive events across the world.

As a Performance director her work on video games is multi BAFTA nominated and winning, and she has worked on some of the world’s biggest titles. Her work on video game CONTROL helped earn a record breaking 11 BAFTA nominations. She trained at RADA, The National Theatre and the Donmar Warehouse.

Kirsty Jennings

Anagram

Kirsty is a multidisciplinary producer and strategic leader with a proven track record in securing international commissions and partnerships, leading organisational change and producing award-winning works of high quality and artistic ambition. In April 2020, Kirsty began working as Executive Producer for Anagram, an award-winning creative studio specialising in interactive storytelling and immersive experience design.

Previously, Kirsty worked as Business Director for the internationally renowned artist group Blast Theory for eight years. In this post, Kirsty produced artworks across multiple immersive forms including Karen (2015), a digital artwork exploring data profiling; politically-charged immersive theatre pieces such as Operation Black Antler (2016); large scale international collaborations such as 2097: We Made Ourselves Over (2017) and live interactive feature films including Bloodyminded (2018). Kirsty also worked with Documentary Campus, 104 Films and Sheffield Doc/Fest.

Anna Lowe

Smartify

Anna is Co-Founder and Director of Partnerships at Smartify, a digital platform that makes museums accessible for a global audience through innovative technology and engaging storytelling.

Previously, she worked in arts education for the London Borough of Camden and the National Museum of Fine Art, Argentina.

In 2019 Anna was appointed by UK government as a Trustee at the Tate, making her the youngest ever trustee of a UK national museum.

She is also a Trustee of Hope in Tottenham a youth charity that provides counselling, mentoring and art programmes for young people in Tottenham, North London.

Maurice Seleky

Amsterdam Museum

Maurice Seleky is a senior communications strategist, author and moderator, currently serving as the Head of Communications and Marketing as part of the management team at the Amsterdam Museum.

Although trained as a lawyer, Seleky chose a career in the creative industries. He worked as a PR- and communication strategist at Coebergh Communications & PR and Vandejong Creative Agency, after which he became a partner at Novel Creative Consultancy. From 2017 until the beginning of 2020, he worked as Head of Marketing and Communications at Pakhuis de Zwijger, the independent platform for innovation and creation in Amsterdam.

'Culture Geek has become a fixture in my diary. Relaxed and informal but packed with great advice, and I always make new and useful contacts. Admittedly, I do come away with more questions than answers - perhaps that's its best feature.'
Rob Macpherson, Birmingham Hippodrome

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