As Chief Executive, I'm responsible for the strategic leadership and management of the organisation. This involves a wide range of duties including the exploration of new business opportunities, ensuring our social objectives remain central to the design and delivery of all our programmes and services.

Having studied at Falmouth School of Art and at Courtauld Institute, my background and professional expertise is firmly rooted in the visual arts. However,  I'm also passionate about theatre and poetry having spent many years working with small theatre companies, both as an actor and director.

In addition to my work at Creative United, I am involved in a voluntary capacity on the Board of a number of other arts organisations including Poet in the City, New Contemporaries and the Oppenheim-John Downes Memorial Trust.

As Chief Operating Officer I am responsible for overseeing all operational aspects of the business ensuring that the financial, technological and administrative functions of the business run smoothly. I also have responsibility and oversight of much of the business governance including compliance with the regulatory bodies regarding financial conduct and data protection. I also lead the consumer credit team driving performance in the Own Art and Take it away schemes.

I have over 15 years’ experience working within arts administration having led teams in busy box office environments from small independent venues to internationally renowned institutions.

I am also an active musician, playing in a popular function band for 5 years, and I have acted with a number of small theatre companies.

Sarah leads on the strategy and programme development for Creative United’s access to finance and business support work. From 2014- 16, this focused on delivering the Creative Industry Finance programme. From 2017 onwards, Sarah spearheaded the launch and delivery of a number of programmes, including Prosper, Forge and Prosper. In addition to her work at Creative United, Sarah is on the Board of Trustees for the Music Venue Trust.

Sarah studied Film and Drama, but music has always been her first love, having started her career in the creative industry by setting up her own booking agency getting bands into live music venues in London. A few years later she entered the world of grant-giving by becoming the Communications Manager for PRS for Music Foundation. 

As the Head of Programme Development for Creative United, I am responsible for leading on the strategic planning and development of Creative United’s consumer credit programmes, primarily the Own Art and Take it away schemes. Across both schemes we have a network of over 400 member galleries and musical instrument retailers with whom I provide sales and administrative support alongside the wider Consumer Credit team. I have been with Creative United since 2019 and am very pleased to be part of Creative United’s continued commitment of increasing social engagement in the arts and the growth of the creative industries.

My background is in the visual arts but I am passionate about all creative pursuits and particularly enjoy attending live music events. I studied at the Cardiff School of Art, obtaining a First in Art and Aesthetics in 2004 and am pleased to say that I continue my own practice as an artist and photographer in my spare time. Professionally, I have over 15 years’ experience in business management within the hospitality and retail sectors, including managing art galleries in the primary and secondary markets.

Please contact me if you have any questions about Own Art or the Take it away scheme. I would be very happy to hear from you.

As Senior Marketing and Communications Manager, it is my job to act as brand guardian across all Creative United’s programmes. My role will be to supervise and develop the work we all do to reach new audiences, maintain the quality and effectiveness of all our communications and ensure our marketing output is aligned with our social impact goals and priorities. I keep the website up to date, manage the production of blogs and editorial content, lead on the development of long term communications strategies.

After graduating with a degree in English Literature from the University of Lincoln, I’ve spent 8 years working in the creative and cultural sector, engaging with a wide range of audiences form galleries, theatres, and museums, to schools, local authorities, and funding bodies.

In addition to my work at Creative United, I also work with Get It Loud in Libraries, an organisation bringing emerging and established musical talent to play doorstep gigs in libraries across England and Scotland. The goal of this work is to challenge and change perceptions of libraries and to engage new audiences, particularly young people in using these unique and valuable community assets.

Hi! I’m the Finance and Operations Officer at Creative United. My responsibilities focus on the general accounting needs of the organisation e.g. bookkeeping, credit control, prepayments, and assisting in the preparation of management accounts, annual financial statements, and financial forecast. I also maintain the data integrations for our Consumer Credit programmes.

My background is in the charity sector supporting international finance and IT systems to meet the needs of third sector aims. I’m a part-qualified ICAEW accountant with experience in the R&D and grants landscape. I’m also an avid supporter of my childhood club Dagenham & Redbridge FC.

As E-learning Business Development Manager, I manage Creative United’s e-learning platform on LearnWorlds, actively supporting and encouraging learners to engage with our on-demand video courses. In addition to managing relationships with our training partners, I lead on the content strategy and programme design and development for these online training resources.

Growing up multi-lingual, in one of the smallest countries in Europe, I love meeting people from various backgrounds and exchanging new ideas. Since 2013, I’ve worked in a mix of project management, marketing, and content creation roles in the cultural sector across the UK, Luxembourg, and Aotearoa-New Zealand. Most recently, I’ve co-managed the National Centre for Industrial Culture in Luxembourg, a newly established heritage organisation, growing it from the ground up and leading on their communications and various projects such as a monthly podcast and large-scale exhibition, in the frame of the European Capital of Culture Esch2022. As a true arts lover, I’m interested in all forms of culture and creativity - I love discovering new music at gigs and festivals and going to exhibitions.

As Consumer Credit Programmes Administrator, I engage with and support the many different individuals and organisations that use our services. As first point of contact for both potential and current members of Own Art and Take it away, I manage the onboarding of new members, lead training sessions and assist in the everyday running of both schemes. The potential my role has for championing accessibility in the arts is particularly important to me.

My background is in both History and Art. I studied History at the University of Cambridge, and then attended art school where I specialised in illustration and stationery design. Finally, I combined my two loves and completed an MA in History of Art and Archaeology of East Asia at SOAS. Since then, I have worked in both the museum and theatre industries.

My passion for the arts, history and inclusion continues outside of work where I am a tour guide for the award-winning LGBTQIA+ Tours at the Victoria and Albert Museum and co-run Housmans Queer Book Club. I spend as much time as I can on research and am currently fascinated by the publishing industry and theatre fandom in Edo Period Japan. When I have any time left, I love attending the theatre, learning traditional folk songs and drawing comic strips about mental health and identity.

As a Digital Marketing Officer at Creative United, my responsibility is to oversee the organisation’s social media output. I ensure that all platforms maintain high-quality and engaging content while implementing multi-channel marketing plans for events and programs. Additionally, I assist in the development of long-term campaign and strategy planning, ensuring that output aligns with the brand mission.

My passion for creativity stems from my BA in English Literature and Creative Writing from the University of Birmingham. I am an avid theatregoer who thrives on many forms of creativity - producing art, poetry and photography. As an Actor, Content Creator, and Finalist for both the ‘Sony Photography Awards’ and the ‘#Merky Penguin Poetry Awards,’ I am continuously inspired by the freedom of exploration and artistic expression.

Aligning my values with my profession, I am drawn to positive social impact initiatives that promote inclusion, visibility, and intersectionality. By working on initiatives that tackle social and environmental issues within the creative industry, I believe we can create a more sustainable and equitable society.

I am an engaging, intellectually curious cultural manager that worked in the field of placemaking across several countries and cities, with the career goal of untangling the complexity of social and cultural dynamics to create a positive change.  

With Venice University, I developed an artist map to understand the impact of art in the city; in Istanbul, as Cultural Consultant for SANALarc studio, I researched cultural clusters around a renovated beer factory to understand how the building could better engage with its environment; in London, as placemaking consultant, I contributed to the development of the community consultation around the renovation of the Brixton Recreational center.   

I worked as a social impact consultant for AKOU, an innovative start-up that looks at human connections to measure social impact, and King’s College doctoral researcher working in a variety of projects. In 2021, I was the principal researcher in fully funded research by CMCI QR Funding on the relationship between creativity and place.  

I have a keen interest in engaging in a person-centered way and maximizing social inclusivity to shape better environments, particularly where creative industries and placemaking interact.   

I joined Creative United in March 2023 as a Social Impact and Development Manager to help better frame the impact of Creative United’s programs. I am particularly focusing on the creation of an impact assessment tool designed for the arts and cultural programs to help understand how they can create economic and social changes, and maximize or control those changes.  

I am a PhD candidate at KCL funded by the London Arts and Humanities Partnership. My research focuses on the promising and yet underexplored notion of Creative and Cultural Ecology. The framework recognises the complementary modalities and value(s) of creative production and consumption while questioning both the primacy given to narrow economic-led imperatives and the mechanistic understanding of the sector of previous research and models. To empirically prove the notion, I am mapping and investigating theatre professionals’ flows between the private, public and not-for-profit spheres through network analysis and interviews.

The PhD’s contributions aim to be: theoretical, mapping current definitions and literature to establish a stronger theoretical grounding; methodological, testing curriculum vitae analysis and mixed-method network analysis as a tool for exploration in CC ecology; empirical, describing the relationships between the private, public and not-for-profit sphere in the theatre sector and the influences they exert on the work network, also including considerations on intersectional inequalities.

Connected to the PhD project’s collaborative nature in partnership with Creative United, the PhD aims to provide policy implications of the listed contributions for the sector and organisations that aim to support its development.

James Cunningham is a Northern Irish, visually impaired musician currently studying at Queen’s University Belfast as part of the Bridging the Gap project. He grew up in NI surrounded by a musical family, and he received his Bachelor’s in Music (BMus) from Queen’s with a focus on composition. James has had pieces premiered in both Belfast and London, and he is also an experienced improvisor with various instruments, most notably clarinet and piano. James’ Guide Dog Bart has travelled with him through much of the formative time in his musical career, and although he plans on retiring in Summer 2022, he will always hold a special place of honour in James’ work.

Jason Dasent has over 25 years’ experience in all aspects of recording and music production. Jason launched Studio Jay Recording in Trinidad in 2000 catering to both the Advertising Sector and Artist Production for many top Caribbean recording artists. He has done Music Scores/ Dialog Replacement & Post-Production for both films & documentaries.

As a visually impaired producer he was challenged to overcome the limitations of mainstream music software when “accessibility” was in its infancy. Over the years this has enabled him to compete successfully with his sighted counterparts and makes him well poised to impart his knowledge and experience to other visually impaired producers and engineers.

In 2017 Jason became a member of a worldwide team of Beta testers for accessibility with AVID ProTools, the first DAW to fully support accessibility. As a result of this project, with the knowledge gained, he now engages with several music
equipment manufacturers e.g. Native Instruments, Arturia, Focusrite/Novation and Antares Autotune among others, to assist them in introducing accessibility features to their products from the back end.