Change at Culture Central

Sector change is core to Culture Central’s work as an organisation, and as part of this we are announcing two new Leadership Associates in 2025, alongside Dr. Anthony Ruck’s new role as Culture Central’s Chief Strategy Officer.

Hear more about the role, and our plans for the Leadership Associates in Anthony’s blog below:  

We are thinking about change at Culture Central, but we’ve been trying to do change too. Since I joined Culture Central in 2021 the organisation has been on a significant journey to becoming a regional organisation that supports the cultural ecology of the West Midlands. Our membership is growing, providing a catalyst and steer to our work as an Investment Principles Support Organisation around our three actions of convening, challenging and connecting the sector.  

Our work has some core foundations and partnerships that have been collectively built to get us to where we are today; the founding of the WMCRU, our work with More Than a Moment, programmes like Transforming Narratives, Convene, Challenge, Connect and our support for the West Midlands Cultural Sector Research Project have helped us to shape and refine our offer; all supported by excellent partners and practice here in the region.  

Within Culture Central, we’ve also been making changes – building on the work of previous colleagues expertise and knowledge and creating new programmes and activity with team members that bring an extraordinary set of skills and perspectives to the work we do. I know many of you will have met some of the Culture Central team, but it is important to recognise the thoughtful and deep work that they do. Their knowledge is rooted in the work of the sector and informs and shapes all of our strategic activity. It is vital to what we do as an organisation and I’m proud of the work, challenge and thoughtfulness they bring to what we do collectively.  

As part of this change – I’m really pleased to be supported by Erica and the board to take on a new role as Chief Strategy Officer at Culture Central. This new role has four additional areas of responsibility that include: 

  • Developing and formalising our strategic relationships with local and national stakeholders, ensuring the voice and ambitions of the cultural sector are heard at the highest levels 

  • Guiding Culture Central’s work on skills, jobs and opportunities in the region 

  • Leading our programmes around equity, inclusivity and relevance. Championing those traditionally excluded or underserved by cultural sector opportunities and supporting change within the region

  • Leading on the strategy and development of our work as an Investment Principles Support Organisation to meet the ambitions and needs of the people and places of the West Midlands

These areas of work are incredibly important to me and since joining Culture Central, my ambitions remain the same. I’m incredibly proud of being from Coventry, and from the West Midlands, but I know that there are many challenges for those coming from backgrounds that have been excluded from work in the cultural sector. We’ve been working on some of these challenges as part of our work as an organisation and it’s been incredible to hear feedback over the past few years…one quote stands out from our Collective programme where someone said “I would never have put myself forward for this programme, but the way it was described, the way that I was approached and supported made me realise this was an opportunity I should take”. 

I’m ambitious for all the people that we work with, learn from and support, and I’m also incredibly ambitious about the West Midlands and the powerful creative and cultural work that happens here, within organisations of all sizes and scales, individual freelancers, artists and creatives and in communities of all types within the region. 

My Journey and Influences

My journey, like many others, hasn’t followed a linear path. As the first person in my family to go to university, going to art college meant that I ended up feeling like I needed to leave the region and go to London, studying design and advertising, as a practical way of doing something creative with the potential of ‘getting a job’ at the end of it. My start in the creative sector, as an intern invovled getting paid £5 per day to cover transport and subsistence at an agency in London, effectively subsidising the company for months whilst also holding down a weekend job to cover my rent. After this, I setup a participatory design studio for youth charities, sleeping in a friends garage and later a living room floor for over a year.  

Realising that this wasn’t going to be sustainable long term I ended up moving back to Coventry doing a part time MA in Cultural Policy at the University of Warwick. I grew up about ten minutes from the University but never even knew it existed (let alone what a Russell Group University meant). I also discovered that I was the only person in the entire cohort who had to write an entrance essay, as there were concerns if I would be ‘academic’ enough. The learning during this time really shifted me into my current areas of focus, with a keen interest in creativity, learning and inequalities; I soon ended up back in London working at A New Direction, and later at Arts Council England working within the CYP team, including co-authoring the Durham Commission before moving back to the region for an ESRC funded PhD in Sociology.  

These are the things that have influenced me, my position and ambitions for the region. I’m keenly aware that we don’t always talk about our journeys, but as I step into this new role at Culture Central it seems important to share this journey and some of the challenges I have faced along the way. I know too that many of  the Culture Central team have also faced challenges and our collective experiences make the work we do as an organisation stronger. It is also important to acknowledge there are many more challenges faced by people aiming to step into spaces like the ones I now work within. I’m keenly aware that there are many great people working in strategy and policy but they are often not called upon to speak or have their knowledge and skills shared in this space.

New Leadership Associates Programme

As this new role has been created at Culture Central, and supported by the board, Erica and I are now starting to think about our future leadership strategy. One thing we know is that in the region there has historically been little scope for mobility in senior level jobs, this is one of the challenges to the innovation and leadership that our region needs.  

In early 2025, Culture Central will be appointing two Leadership Associates, to both learn about the work that Culture Central does, but to support the development and future direction of the organisation. These roles will be specifically for those traditionally excluded from the cultural sector and will speak to the gaps we have in leadership at the moment in our organisation, particularly those from racialised backgrounds, those with disabilities, and those with experience of the care system. All people from traditionally excluded backgrounds however will be welcome to apply, and we recognise that there are many intersecting communities and identities that may be interested.  

It’s crucial to say at this point that this is about people who are interested in strategy, policy, leadership and governance. At this stage we don’t have a clear outline of what these associate roles look like, other than some short amounts of time for people to take time out from their current and support us. We are taking this exploratory approach as we want to speak to and hear from people that might be interested to learn what will work best for them.

We’ll be announcing the process in early 2025, but if you want to have a discussion about this, sign up for more information, or have someone that you would recommend for this who you think would be interested, you can fill in your details here.   

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