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Directors
Josephine Burns
Paul Owens
John Howkins (Chair)
Directors
Josephine Burns | Director
Josephine is co-Director of BOP Consulting, a founding member of the original partnership and a highly experienced consultant and project manager with particular specialisms in strategic planning, evaluation and regeneration. On leaving senior management in the arts in 1991, Josephine worked independently until establishing BOP in 1997. She leads on a wide range of projects including recent work for DCMS, Arts Council England, the Council of Europe, the Scottish Parliament, UK Film Council and LOCOG. She regularly chairs and presents at high-profile conferences and events, nationally and internationally. She is the chair of FOCI (www.foci.org.uk), an adviser to the British Council on the creative industries, an honorary fellow of both the Royal Northern College of Music and the University of Bolton, and a board member of four wide-ranging cultural organisations.
Paul Owens | Director
Paul is co-Director and a founder of BOP Consulting. He leads our work in economic development and creative industries, with particular knowledge of skills and training, entrepreneurship, cluster development and economic impact analysis. In the past two years he has led on a wide range of high-profile research and strategy projects for clients including the DCMS, NESTA, the British Council, the Mayor of London, Skillset, Unesco and a number of English Regional Development Agencies. Paul holds an Honours Degree in English Literature and Language from Oxford University and an MA in Area Studies (Africa) from London University, School of Oriental and African Studies. Paul is also the Chair of The Video College, an independent training and production facility based in West London.
John Howkins | Chair
John Howkins is a leading authority on creativity and innovation, and author (in 2001) of 'The Creative Economy'. He has advised global corporations, international organisations, governments, and individuals, and has worked in over 30 countries including Australia, Canada, China, France, Greece, India, Italy, Japan, Poland, Singapore, UK and USA. John's business career has been spent in TV, film, digital media and publishing. He is Deputy Chairman of the British Screen Advisory Council (BSAC), a Member of the United Nations UNDP Advisory Committee on the Creative Economy, a former Chairman of the London Film School and a former Executive Director of the International Institute of Communications (IIC). He is Visiting Professor, Lincoln University, England, and Vice Dean and Visiting Professor, the Shanghai School of Creativity, Shanghai Theatre Academy, China. He is also Chairman of ITR Consultants and John Howkins & Co.
Consultants
Richard Naylor | Head of Research
Richard's expertise lies in the fields of urban and regional development, media and creative industries, and the social and economic impacts of culture. He has extensive experience of designing and implementing qualitative and quantitative research projects. Before joining BOP Consulting in 2002, Richard spent five years as a Research Associate with the Centre for Urban and Regional Development Studies (CURDS) at Newcastle University, and two years at the University of Westminster undertaking research projects on the audio-visual sector. He has over ten years of contract research experience, working for a range of clients including the DCMS, European Commission, the DTI, the Economic and Social Research Council, and the London Development Agency. His recent activities include leading on: work for MLA to design and test a pioneering prototype national framework for measuring and evaluating social impact, research on the interactive media/digital content sector for North West Vision, and writing an Expert Scoping Study for UNESCO’s Institute for Cultural Statistics.
Colin Kirkpatrick | Senior Consultant
A BOP consultant since April 2004, Colin has delivered a wide range of research, evaluation and strategy projects for clients including: The UK Film Council, Skillset, Arts Council England, the Council of Europe, Film London, the London Development Agency, Culture East Midlands, South West Screen, MLA NW, the Scottish Executive and Higher Education South East. Before joining BOP, Colin spent four years working at the University of Westminster's commercial research and consultancy arm, westmARC – principally at New Media Knowledge (www.nmk.co.uk), where he was acting Director from 2003-2004. He began his career in magazine and newspaper publishing, after graduating from the University of Edinburgh with an MA (Hons) in English Literature. Colin also contributes to the Sustainable Development Commission's UK Sustainable Development Panel.
David Holland | Senior Consultant
David has been a consultant with BOP Consulting since 2005. In that time, he has gained substantial experience providing a range of consulting services to senior managers in client organisations including: Creative Partnerships, Arts Council England, the British Council, the Department for Culture Media and Sport (DCMS), the European Cultural Foundation, and the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts (NESTA). David works across the four areas of BOP’s practice – research, evaluation, strategy development, and organisational development – but has particular interests in evaluation and organisational development. He is currently leading on several BOP projects, including a scoping study for the Government’s recently announced 'Find Your Talent' programme (which will pilot a 5 hour a week cultural offer for children and young people across England), a large-scale evaluation of Creative Partnerships, and an evaluation of NESTA’s national creative graduate entrepreneurship programme, Insight Out. He gained a degree in Economics and Asian Studies with distinction from Amherst College and was awarded two MA degrees from SOAS, University of London as an Evan Carroll Commager Fellow. David is a member of the United Kingdom Evaluation Society.
David Lee | Senior Consultant
David has expertise in the media and creative industries, cultural planning, and urban and regional development. Since joining BOP Consulting in 2005, David has worked on projects for a range of clients, including Nesta, the London Development Agency, Creative Partnerships, Westminster City Council, NorthWest Vision and Manchester City Council. Recent projects for BOP include a major cultural mapping study of the West Midlands for the West Midlands Regional Assembly, a feasibility study for the cultural development of Manchester City South, and the development of a cultural strategy for the Fylde Coast. Before joining BOP, David worked in broadcasting as a researcher and assistant producer on a range of documentaries and current affairs programmes. He has also worked for the think-tank Demos, where he specialised in cultural policy and creative industries research. David has a first class honours degree in English and Drama and an MA with distinction in Media and Communications from the University of London. He has recently submitted his PhD, undertaken at Goldsmiths, University of London, which investigates working patterns in the independent TV industry, and was funded by the AHRC.
Christopher Gibbon | Consultant
Chris joined BOP Consulting in the summer of 2007 from urban regeneration company Strategic Urban Futures (StUF). Prior to that, Chris completed an MSc in Human Geography Research at the London School of Economics. Chris's academic interests include economic and urban geography, and the knowledge economy; his masters’ dissertation explored the relevance of Richard Florida’s ideas on 'creative' cities in Britain. While at StUF, Chris worked for Hackney Council’s Strategic Policy and Research unit, carrying out analyses of the borough’s ethnicity and diversity and producing socio-economic profiles of the council's wards. He also worked on a series of community consultations on 21 housing estates across Hackney and on the Housing Needs and Conditions survey StUF ran on the North Prospect estate in Plymouth. At BOP, Chris is currently undertaking a statistical mapping of creative industries in the West of England.
Lucy Mantella | Consultant
Lucy's current consultancy projects at BOP Consulting include a Skills Needs Analysis for Skillset Northwest, an evaluation of partnership working for Creative Partnerships and the development of a business plan for the Reader Project at the University of Liverpool. Before joining BOP, Lucy completed a degree in Arts Management from De Montfort University and worked for Leicester City Council's Arts Services department, where she was involved in a number of transformational projects aimed at changing current perceptions of Leicester as a city, both regionally and nationally.
Marine Shah | Company Manager
Marine manages BOP Consulting's offices and provides administrative support to the directors. Before joining BOP in July '07, Marine worked in human resources at the Parc de La Villette in Paris, where she also supported audience development for creative and cultural programmes. With a deep interest in the performing arts, Marine administered the theatre company Imagin'action - Companie du Regard, and was closely involved in artistic and educational outreach projects with local communities.
Xu Chen | Country Manager (China)
With an MA degree in Cultural and Creative Industries from King’s College London, Xu joins BOP Consulting to help implement the company's international projects. Xu recently undertook a feasibility study of a mixed-use creative community zone in Hangzhou, commissioned by a large Hong Kong property developer. She also worked as researcher on the update of John Howkins' book on the global Creative Economy. At BOP, she is currently working on the Creative Towns and Cities Project for Higher Education South East.
Associates
Theresa Griffin | Associate
Theresa specialises in the role of culture in regional development. Theresa spent five years as an elected politician in Liverpool, where she chaired Liverpool’s Economic Development and European Affairs committees. Theresa’s consultancy work centres upon advocating for the role of culture and the creative industries in creating sustainable employment and growing the economies and inclusiveness of local communities and regions. Formerly Director of Communications and Research at North West Arts Board, to 2000, Theresa has led on cultural policy and strategy development for a number of local authorities and has developed economic and social impact toolkits for the European Commission and urban and rural regeneration companies. Projects include testing new financial instruments to expand the cultural economy across the European Union, facilitating the north west response to the DCMS Creative Economy Programme, developing a Cultural Impacts Toolkit for Manchester City Council, a review of Museums, Library and Archive Activity with children and young people and, for Arts Council England NW, major research to identify the potential for the economic, artistic and creative development of the music sector.
Richard Holt | Associate
Richard Holt has been an Associate at BOP Consulting since January 2008. He is an economist and strategy consultant with huge experience in both the public and private sectors, and a particular interest in the economics of location and innovation. Before joining BOP Consulting, Richard was President of Experian Business Strategies Americas, based in New York, where he led a team providing location advice and intelligence to American retailers and real estate investors. Clients included JC Penney, JP Morgan Chase, Conde Nast and HSBC. Before that he was Director of Futures Research for Experian in London, responsible for public sector consultancy on a range of regional and local issues including skills and strategic futures. Clients included the London Development Agency, Scottish Enterprise, the City of Edinburgh, the Welsh Assembly Government and the Centre for Cities. His publications include books on the history of America’s global economic influence and on Britain’s post-war Chancellors of the Exchequer, as well as numerous papers and articles. He is also a consultant to the Technology Strategy Board.
Kate Oakley | Associate
Kate Oakley is a writer and policy analyst, specialising in the creative industries, cultural policy and regional development. She is a Visiting Professor at the Department of Cultural Policy and Management, City University, and an Adjunct Professor in the Faculty of Creative Industries, Queensland University of Technology. She was the author of the Creative London Report in 2004 and has worked with a number of cities and regions on public policy in the creative industries - in the UK and internationally. Publications in this field include The Independents (2000) and Surfing the Long Wave (2001), co-written with Charles Leadbeater, and London’s Creative Economy: An Accidental Success?, co-written with John Knell and recently published by the Work Foundation.She previously held research and consulting posts with the Policy Studies Institute and Manchester Business School, where she had a Fellowship in the Knowledge Industries. Kate’s current research interests concern work in the creative industries and she is currently undertaking a study of fine arts graduates, which will seek to understand their changing work patterns over a 70-year period.
Julian Sefton-Green | Associate
Dr Julian Sefton-Green an independent consultant and researcher working in Education and the cultural and creative industries. He is currently an Adjunct Associate Research Professor at the University of South Australia, where he has been developing a city-wide initiative to develop new kinds of spaces for learning. He is also carrying out research into the creative workforce in London and working with the University of Oslo exploring learning across formal and informal domains. Julian has directed research projects for the Arts Council of England, the British Film Institute and Creative Partnerships, speaks regularly at conferences around the world, and has researched and written widely on many aspects of media education, new technologies and informal learning. He has been the Head of Media Arts and Education at WAC Performing Arts and Media College, where he directed a range of digital media activities for young people and co-ordinated training for media artists and teachers. He also worked as media studies teacher in an inner city comprehensive and in higher education teaching undergraduate and postgraduate courses, and leading teacher training degree in media education. (www.julianseftongreen.net)
Hugh Mason | Associate
Hugh trained as a television producer with the BBC before building up a BAFTA-nominated independent broadcast production business. He is a partner at Pembridge, the business accelerator for creative services firms, where he specialises in working with public sector organisations, helping to define and implement strategies for growth, employment and wealth-creation through the creative sector. His clients include Screen Yorkshire, Northern Film and Media, Southwest Screen, Skillset and Business Link for London. Hugh leads on delivering Vital Stats, the business support and benchmarking solution developed as a joint venture between Pembridge and BOP.