Business Planning

Amy Dalton-Hardy is a Midlands-based cultural strategist, consultant and producer working at the intersection of place, access, leadership and systems change. She supports artists, organisations and cross-sector partnerships to design projects, unlock funding and navigate shifting conditions in the cultural sector. Amy’s practice spans strategic advisory, organisational development, fundraising and facilitation - often working inside large, multi-stakeholder collaborations, from local authorities and universities to community-led collectives and national portfolios. She co-directs Propel Dance CIC (the UK’s only professional wheelchair dance company) and brings lived insight into inclusive leadership, freelancer pathways, distributed governance and equitable access to opportunity. Alongside consultancy, Amy mentors independent practitioners, supports emerging leaders, freelance artists and creative entrepreneurs. Driven by a belief that everyone should be able to thrive in the arts - regardless of postcode, background or pathway - Amy is passionate about building capacity, confidence and infrastructure across the ecosystem so that talent and community imagination can flourish.

Hi there, I’m Azieb, I’m a senior creative leader, arts strategist and writer, passionate about the power of culture to connect people, unlock hidden stories, and spark radical change. From 2019–2025, I led the Bernie Grant Arts Centre in Tottenham, north London, helping it become a nationally recognised home for bold, Black-led creativity. During that time, I secured Arts Council England National Portfolio status for the first time in BGAC’s history, founded the Tottenham Literature Festival and BGAC Windrush Festival, rebuilt relationships with the Local Authority, and built exciting partnerships with brilliant organisations like Talawa, Dance Umbrella, LIFT, Greater London Authority, National Youth Theatre, Punchdrunk, and major funders including Paul Hamlyn Foundation, Freelands Foundation and Barings Foundation.

Before BGAC, I was Senior Programmer at Southbank Centre, London, where I led Africa Utopia, an annual festival highlighting African and diaspora arts and ideas. I also played a key role in growing and expanding the Women of the World festival (WOW), including internationally to Somaliland, Nigeria, and Baltimore, USA.  I’ve also been a trustee of LIFT, an Artistic Advisor to Manchester International Festival, a patron of the SI Leeds Prize, and a member of the Mayor of London’s Black Cultural Events Advisory Group.

I began my career as a journalist, writing for The Guardian for over a decade and contributing to The Times, Stylist, and Vogue UK. I’m also the editor of Fashion Cities Africa and the author of My Fathers’ Daughter — reprinted in 2022 as part of Bernardine Evaristo and Penguin’s Black Britain Writing Back series. I believe that for work to be truly ambitious, it must be inclusive and collaborative. My specialist areas are; creative ambition, vision, artistic strategy, artistic development, racial and gender equity within the arts and embedding diverse practices.  I’m also a Hamilton superfan, but we’ll get into that another time. 

Hello, I'm Lily. I am a creative and cultural producer, consultant, coach,  and writer with a specialism in community and socially engaged arts. I believe that care is an aesthetic and creative practice and that the highest quality, most innovative work, which uplifts and inspires, creates joy and wonder, which takes risks, can only be made in a process which centres ethics and care. I love working with clients and companies whose work is rooted in socially engaged practices, in a sense of joy, in gentle disruption, in the belief that the work, the sector, the world, can be better. I love people who are willing to take risks, and I love to help them take them safely. I can help you to understand and articulate your mission and vision; develop your strategy; place participatory processes at the heart of your organisation; create collaboration between staff, artists, stakeholders, audiences and communities; mentor and coach your staff and teams, and help you design community and young people's programmes, shows and events. Organisations I have worked with include National Theatre, Complicité, Crafts Council, London Theatre Consortium, Theatre Royal Stratford East, English National Opera, Company of Others, Camden People's Theatre, 60 Miles, Young Vic, Down to Earth CPP, Krishna Istha. I’d love to talk to you.

Lilli is an independent consultant and facilitator, working at the intersections of culture, climate and change. She is currently p/t Director of Theatre Green Book, supporting the performing arts sector to transition to net zero, and works with a wide range of cultural and creative organisations and programmes towards a transformative future.

Lilli has extensive experience of developing strategic plans and programmes to support arts and culture to become more inclusive and equitable. She enjoys designing and facilitating sessions that help people find the right ways forward for themselves, and specialises in empowering teams to develop new ideas, have difficult conversations and support each other.

She is passionate about improving the quality of policy making across arts and culture, and developing policy to support transition to circular economies, green jobs and a sustainable future. She’s obsessed with approaches to decision making, and loves to share the secret power of using random selection to revolutionise selection processes, or bring everyone along through consensus decision making.

Current/recent work includes projects with British Fashion Council, Creative UK, West Midlands Combined Authority, and Paul Hamlyn Foundation.

Before going freelance in summer 2024, Lilli was Deputy Director of the Creative Policy and Evidence Centre (PEC), where she delivered the first four State of the Nations reports, and Director of Jerwood Arts for five years, channelling £10 million of funding to over 1000 early-career artists from all art forms across the UK, as well as designing and delivering leadership programmes such as the Weston Jerwood Creative Bursaries.

She started her career in think tanks, before co-founding HighTide and becoming a theatre producer, including for the Almeida Theatre, and working for Arts Council England.

She is Co-Chair of Fuel Theatre, a Trustee of Projekt Europa and a mentor with Arts Emergenc.