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About the panellists

Georgina Adam is currently Art Market Editor at Large for The Art Newspaper and Art Market
correspondent for the Financial Times. She studied Islamic Art at the Ecole du Louvre many,
many years ago and has been writing about the art market since 1985, from Paris, Tokyo (where
she lived for five years) and from London. She has worked as a freelance journalist for a variety of
publications and has lectured on her subject at the Hermitage Museum and at Sotheby’s and
Christie’s Institutes. She is a member of AICA, the International Association of Art Critics.

Peter Aspden is the Financial Times' arts writer, having previously been its arts editor for five
years. He joined the paper in 1994, as deputy books and arts editor and a general feature writer
on Weekend FT. He has written on numerous subjects, including travel, religion, politics, history,
most art forms and sport: he covered the Olympic Games in Atlanta in 1996, and the World Cup in
France in 1998. He was born in London in 1958, but spent much of his childhood in Greece,
where his mother was born. He was educated at St Edmund Hall, Oxford, where he read
Philosophy, Politics and Economics, before going into journalism. He joined the Times Higher
Education Supplement in 1985, where he went on to become deputy editor. He has been writing a
weekly column on contemporary culture since January 2004; it appears in the Life & Arts section
every Saturday.

Helen Beeckmans is Head of Communications at Tate. Helen runs the Press Office for the
London galleries which have a high profile exhibition programme including the Turner Prize and
the Unilever Commission, and she manages the Corporate Communications for the organisation.
She also works closely with the press teams at Tate Liverpool and Tate St Ives and with the
Directorate team on Internal Communications. Prior to joining Tate in 2005 Helen was a Press
Officer at the V&A.

Catharine Braithwaite has 18 years experience in arts marketing communications. She has
particular experience of working in the visual arts and museums sector and over her 10 years as a
freelance she has worked with Imperial War Museum North, Tate Liverpool, FACT Liverpool,
National Museums Liverpool, Manchester Art Gallery, The Lowry, Cornerhouse Manchester,
Harris Museum & Art Gallery Preston, Art Sheffield, Bury Art Gallery, Museum + Archive, The
Whitworth Art Gallery Manchester, Project Base Cornwall, Newlyn Art Gallery, Penzance Art
Gallery, Compton Verney, Text Festival Bury, Asia Triennial Manchester and Liverpool Biennial.
For this session she will sharing the best tactics to interest national media in your programme and
venue using the recent PR work she has been doing with Manchester Museums Consortium and
their Creative Tourist campaign.

Kate Burvill is a freelance PR with twenty years of media experience within the arts. After six
years as Head of Press at Tate she became Head of Press, then Head of Marketing & Media, at
international arts publishers Thames & Hudson. Recent campaigns include Van Gogh Letters and
Man with a Blue Scarf: On Sitting for a Portrait by Lucian Freud. Kate's approach is 'proactive,
intelligent and relevant' PR.

Imogen Carter is a commissioning editor on the Observer New Review. Before joining the paper
two and a half years ago she worked at the BBC as a researcher/director on The Culture Show
and a development producer across BBC TV and online as well as doing some freelance
writing. Prior to her career as an arts journalist she was an award-winning PR who made the
switch after realising most of her calls to the press were spent wishing she was on the other end
of the line! Her PR experience includes: managing publicity for arts programming on BBC TV
(including partnerships with Tate, National Portrait Gallery and Baltic); information manager for the
British Council's performing arts department; and broadcast manager for the inaugural
Manchester International Festival. Brought up in North Wales she now lives in London and has an
M.A in Arts Criticism and Management from City University.

John Goudie is the editor of Front Row, BBC Radio 4's daily arts programme, broadcast each
weekday evening at 7.15pm. Over the past two decades, John has produced a wide range of
cultural programmes for BBC network radio, as well as more than 50 documentaries and features
on subjects ranging from the history of Radio 3 to the Bronx cemetery where numerous jazz
musicians now rest.

Oliver Hickson is PR & Client Director at the Central Office of Information (COI). He joined COI
in 1995 as a Sponsorship and Promotions Manager. Currently PR & Client Director at COI
looking after all PR agency, best practice PR evaluation, Education and Armed Forces PR work.
Previously COI’s PR & Sponsorship Director, growing a team from 8 to 30. Produced the
government sponsorship guidelines and set up COI’s partnership marketing offer. Prior to COI
worked at Alan Pascoe Associates in Sports Marketing and at Guinness PLC as a
Sales/Marketing graduate trainee.

Tom Jeffreys is the Arts Editor and Features Editor at Spoonfed.co.uk, the ultimate guide to
London events. Tom is a professional art critic, editor and internationally published, award-winning
writer with experience across the arts, culture, fashion and media. Tom also writes about
restaurants, music, cocktails and breakfasts for a variety of publications, and runs a blog about
village cricket.

Jill Lawless is a former theatre critic in Toronto and a newspaper editor in Mongolia. Since 2000
she has been a London correspondent for U.S.-based news service The Associated Press - the
world's largest newsgathering organization - where she writes about British film, television theatre,
museums, galleries and publishing for an international audience.

Jack Malvern is a general news reporter for The Times, and formerly the newspaper's arts
reporter. He reports on a wide variety of topics but has a special interest in the arts, history and
things that might make readers laugh.

Richard Moss has been at Culture24 since summer 2002 in a variety of roles and guises ranging
from reporter and features editor to deputy editor and, since 2008, website editor. Over that time
he has developed a good understanding of the museum, gallery and archive sector whilst
experiencing the changes in digital cultural publishing within the
public sector.

Harry Mount is a journalist who writes regularly for the Daily Telegraph, the Daily Mail, the Times,
the Evening Standard, the Spectator, Country Life, the Times Literary Supplement, the New
Statesman and Literary Review. His book, A Lust for Window Sills - a guide to British Buildings
from Portcullis to Pebble-Dash, was published in 2008 by Little, Brown. He has written two other
books - Amo, Amas, Amat and All That - How to Become a Latin Lover [2006], a top ten
bestseller, and My Brief Career - the trials of a junior lawyer [2004]. He also teaches architectural
history at the City and Guilds School of Art in Kennington, London.

Alex Needham is currently acting arts editor of the Guardian. Before that he was culture editor of
guardian.co.uk, with overall responsibility for all arts and entertainment content. He's also been
deputy editor of NME and features editor of The Face, and writes for publications around the
world including W, Fantastic Man and 032c.

Gretchen Pierce joined Tate in August 2010 as their first Internal Communications Manager and
is responsible for establishing joined-up and effective internal communications channels and
processes throughout the five Tate sites. She has more than 15 years of experience working in
internal communications, most recently from the British Heart Foundation, where she was also
Internal Communications Manager. Her background includes work in the private, public and non-
profit sectors. Previous employers include the Tricycle Theatre, American Association of Retired
Persons (AARP), Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corp (FREDDIE MAC), and the American Film
Institute. Gretchen holds an MA in Arts Management from City University in London.

Kevin Read is Managing Director at Bell Pottinger Business & Brand. Kevin is a former political
speech writer and management lecturer. His main focus is on resolving complex, international
communications problems, shaping fresh, modern strategies and implementing integrated
solutions that are typically spearheaded by PR. He has more than 15 years’ senior consultancy
experience and specialises in strategic planning and providing senior level business counsel. He
has worked extensively for leading global brands (HSBC, British Gas, Unilever),a wide array of
industry bodies (Nuclear, Food, Telecomms, Cosmetics, Drinks), government departments, NGOs
and professional services firms.

Kate Rosser has worked in PR for four years. Prior to the Museum of London, she worked at two
commercial PR agencies in London and Shanghai with a variety of clients including PAUL, Anne
Fontaine and CBS Outdoor. Preceding this, she studied for an MA in the Cultural and Creative
Industries and also worked for the British Red Cross in PR and fundraising where she spent time
working in communications at the UN General Assembly in 2005. She will be talking about how to
maintain visibility in the media when you do not have big news stories. This was particularly useful
during the redevelopment at the Museum of London when half of the Museum was closed to the
public.

Simon Stephens has been a journalist for nearly 20 years after taking a postgraduate diploma in
periodical journalism at City University, London, in 1993. This followed a BA in modern history at
the University of Liverpool. He started his career at Centaur Communications where he has
worked on various publications including Leisure Week, a magazine for the leisure industry. After
becoming freelance in 2000 he continued to work for Centaur and also contributed to a number of
Haymarket Media Group magazines. He has also worked freelance for The Art Newspaper and
Design Week, among other publications. He became the deputy editor of Museums Journal in
2006. He lives in Stoke Newington in north London with his partner and three children.

Kate Streeter, General Manager Burgh House & Hampstead Museum and Chair of London Shh...
previously worked at Benjamin Franklin House, Shakespeare’s Globe and Metaphor Exhibition
Design. She has BA in Archaeology & Anthropology (2002, Cambridge), and an MA in Managing
Archaeological Sites (2005, Institute of Archaeology, UCL). London Shh was founded in 2008 by
a collection of staff from different historic houses in London all looking to find cheap, innovative
and effective ways of promoting their properties with extremely limited resources. It was formally
launched in November 2009 with a party held at Burgh House, hosted by Dan Cruickshank.

Hedley Swain is Director of Programme Delivery at the Museum Libraries and Archives Council,
he was previously Head of Museum Policy at MLA. Until June 2007 he was Head of Early London
History and Collections at the Museum of London. Hedley has been the chair of the British Society
of Museum Archaeologists, he was also vice President of the Institute of Archaeologists. He sits
on the ethics panel of the Museums Association. In 2005 he chaired the UK government-
sponsored working group drawing up guidelines for the care of human remains in UK museums.
At the MLA Hedley is responsible for all MLA programmes including Renaissance, Accreditation
and Designation and the MLA’s cultural property functions.
He is an honorary lecturer at the Institute of Archaeology, University College London and also
teaches for Birkbeck College, University of London. Hedley has published widely on museum and
archaeological matters. His book An Introduction to Museum Archaeology has just been published
by Cambridge University Press. He is a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries and of the Royal
Society of Arts.

Anna Vinegrad is an independent PR consultant specialising in the arts. She has more than 10
years marketing and communications experience, having previously worked at Pearson Education
and Thames & Hudson, and was until recently head of Visual Arts & Culture at Idea Generation.
At Idea Generation she directed campaigns for clients such as Poetry Society, Wellcome
Collection, Magnum Photos and QUAD, Derby, as well as leading on regional strategy for Antony
Gormley’s Fourth Plinth commission, Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery and Manchester
Museum. She is currently working with producers of extraordinary events, Artichoke, and the artist
Alice Anderson, and is a member of the Steering Committee for FORMAT International
Photography Festival.

Andrew Willshire is the Marketing Development Manager at the Horniman and has responsibility
for Marketing, PR and Special Events. Andrew has been at the Horniman since 1999 and has
been instrumental in increasing visitor numbers by 300% to c.750k a year during this time. Prior to
this he worked in marketing roles for both commercial and charity brands. The CultureLine
initiative in 2010 brought together 10 museums and galleries along the new London Overground
line through East London with excellent results.

Louis Wise is Deputy Online Culture Editor at the Sunday Times. He has also contributed to
guardian.co.uk, the New Statesman, the Sunday Telegraph, the Daily Express, Grazia and icon.

Casia Zajac is currently the interim Head of Press & Homepage at the British Council. She grew
up in the Highlands of Scotland before spending several years in the US and France then
relocating to London in the early 80s where she worked in a Japanese Investment Bank and
discovered her love for PR. She then moved to a FTSE 100 company, Hydro-Electric and further
PR roles in charities, Macmillan and The Prince's Trust and latterly tourism, Visit Scotland and
ABTA. Casia believes that if you get the fundamentals of excellent communications right, you can
successfully work across sectors, which is one of joys the profession. It's never boring. Other PR
joys are getting the best out of the people she manages and creative PR campaigns which she is
going to talk about today. www.casiazajac.co.uk
The Conference Team
Mike Findlay manages the press office at the British Council, and works proactively on their arts
projects spanning the visual arts, drama and dance, music, film, architecture, fashion and design
and cultural and creative economy fields. Prior to working at the British Council he was senior
press officer at The Wellcome Trust, responsible for Wellcome Collection – the Trust’s
increasingly popular museum and gallery on London’s Euston Road. He has also worked in a
similar capacity at the University of Glasgow and Glasgow’s Centre for Contemporary Arts during
its re-launch in 2001. Mike is also a visiting lecturer in PR at the University of Greenwich.

Tim Morley came to museums late and fell in love with the curious community of obsessive and
passionate people who keep them open and fascinating. He recently joined Wellcome Collection,
working on their High Society show, and has delivered press campaigns for exhibitions both
gruesome and glamorous, from Jack the Ripper to Diaghilev, at his previous haunts, the Museum
of London and the V&A.

Clea Relly has lead on establishing the Cultural PR Conference over the last three years and is
Press and PR Manager at the Museum of London. Prior to joining the Museum she worked at
The National Archives and the House of Commons. She will speak about the work the Museum
of London has done on apps, including Streetmuseum, which has now been downloaded over
150,000 times.

Olivia Rickman is Press and PR Manager at the British Museum. Previously she worked as
Press and Marketing Manager at the Foundling Museum, whilst working on the first two Cultural
Venue PR Conferences. Prior to that she was Press and Marketing Officer at Dulwich Picture
Gallery. She also worked at the Fleming Collection and did the Peggy Guggenheim Collection
internship in Venice after graduating from Glasgow University with an MA in History of Art.

Jenny Stewart is a Press Officer at the National Maritime Museum, London. She handles media
enquiries and campaigns for the Museum’s sites (National Maritime Museum, Queen's House,
Royal Observatory, Greenwich and Peter Harrison Planetarium) with key responsibility for the
museum's special exhibitions and adult events programme.

Sheryl Twigg is Press & PR Manager at the National Maritime Museum, London. She manages
the Press Office and all media campaigns for the Museum's sites (National Maritime Museum,
Queen's House, Royal Observatory, Greenwich and Peter Harrison Planetarium) including their
exhibitions, programmes and events. Sheryl also manages the media campaigns for the
Museum's major building projects, such as the £16M re-development of the Royal Observatory
(2007) and the £35M Sammy Ofer Wing for the National Maritime Museum, due to open Summer
2011, and in 2004-2005 oversaw the UK national media campaign for SeaBritain 2005.

Katrina Whenham is a Media and PR Manager at Historic Royal Palaces with responsibility for,
amongst other things, one of our 2011 conference venues – the Tower of London. Her current
projects include the upcoming Royal Beasts exhibition and coordinating international broadcasting
activities at the Tower for the Royal wedding. Previously, Katrina has held press and marketing
roles at the Central Office of Information and the British Museum and has a number of high profile
campaigns and exhibitions under her belt, including Hadrian: Empire and Conflict and the record-
breaking The First Emperor: China's Terracotta Army.

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