About us

Executive board

The executive board is Arts Council England’s strategic and executive decision-making body. It provides the executive link between the national and regional offices.

It is responsible for developing the long-term strategy for the Arts Council and for ensuring delivery of our plan.

The role of the executive board is:

to oversee the development and implementation of corporate strategy
to undertake high level monitoring to ensure delivery of the Arts Council plan
to make major recommendations to Council within delegated powers, and to approve further delegations as appropriate

management committee

Alan Davey - Chief Executive

Alan Davey was appointed Chief Executive of the Arts Council in November 2007.

Alan was Director for Culture at the Department for Culture, Media and Sport from 2003 until December 2006, having previously worked in the department as Head of the Arts Division since 2001. In an earlier stint at the then Department of National Heritage he was responsible for designing the National Lottery.

Alan has also worked at the Department of Health, where he led the Modernising Division and held the post of Secretary to the Royal Commission on Long Term Care. He has been a visiting Fulbright/Helen Hamlyn Scholar at the University of Maryland and has degrees from the universities of Birmingham, Oxford and London.

Alan is well known for his passionate interest in, and advocacy of, the arts, as well as for his unrivalled knowledge of public policy in this area.

Interim Executive Director, Advocacy and Communications

Mary Wright has a background in communications, advocacy and arts policy. Her career started in Australia in the late 1970s, in journalism and radio. She worked for ten years in a range of arts organisations, and for the acclaimed independent literary publisher, Fremantle Arts Centre Press. She then ran an arts management consultancy specialising in editorial services, project management, PR and marketing, and media relations.

Mary joined the Western Australian Department for the Arts as Public Affairs Manager in 1991. She was responsible for managing a number of the personal initiatives of the Minister for the Arts, including the State Arts Sponsorship Scheme, and spent some time as the department's Director of Policy and Development.

Mary came to England in 1999 as Head of Communications for the Yorkshire Arts Board. After the merger of the regional arts boards with the Arts Council in 2002, she became Director of External Relations and Development in the Yorkshire office. Throughout 2008/09, she managed the de-merger of the Creative Partnerships programme into the new national organisation, Creativity, Culture and Education and a network of 25 local area delivery organisations.

Executive Director, Arts Planning and Investment

Althea Efunshile has held senior leadership positions within DfES since 2001. Her recent achievements include the development and launch of the Children in Care Green Paper. From 2003-06 she was director of the Safeguarding Children Group at DfES, where she led and delivered the department’s response to the Bichard Report following the Soham murders. As director of the DfES’s Children and Young People’s Unit from 2001-03, Althea set up the £450 million Children’s Fund programme to ensure every local authority delivered preventative programmes for 5-12 year olds at risk of social exclusion, and she led the development of the 'Outcomes Framework' which has since become an essential aspect of children’s services across the country.

Prior to this, Althea was Director of Education and Community Services, then Director for Education and Culture at the London Borough of Lewisham. Among her achievements was the development of Lewisham’s Cultural Strategy. Althea gained a BA (hons) in Sociology from the University of Essex and a PGCE from Goldsmiths College, University of London.

Executive Director, Arts Strategy

Andrew Nairne was Director of Modern Art Oxford between 2001 and 2008 where he curated exhibitions by established and emerging artists from the UK and around the world. Abolishing the admission charge at the gallery in 2002, Andrew initiated long-term partnerships with schools and the local community and contributed to national debates around the role of the arts in education and society.

Previously he was the first Director of Dundee Contemporary Arts, Visual Arts Director of the Scottish Arts Council, and Exhibitions Director at CCA Glasgow, during which time he supported the rise to international prominence of a new generation of Scottish artists and co-curated the British Art Show 1990 which toured to the Hayward Gallery, London.

A Fellow of the RSA, and visiting Fellow of Nuffield College, University of Oxford, Andrew has also held positions including Chair of the Visual Arts and Galleries Association and Trustee of the Pier Arts Centre, Orkney.

Executive Director, Resources

Anupam Ganguli is a chartered accountant and MBA, whose professional career spans Price Waterhouse Coopers, HSBC, the BBC and KPMG. His previous role was Director of Finance at the Victoria and Albert Museum. Until recently he was deputy chair of the Arts Council's London regional council and a council member since 2002.

He has undertaken voluntary work in the arts for a number of organisations including the Gate Theatre, the Florence Trust and Tamasha Theatre Company. He was previously a Trustee of the Almeida Theatre and the Chisenhale Gallery and is currently a governor of the Central School of Ballet.

Anupam is also a Trustee of the Legacy Trust, a charity that will fund projects which will create an Olympics legacy. In 2001 he was awarded the Whitbread Employee Volunteer of the Year for voluntary work in the arts. Anupam also has a degree in Indian music.

Executive Director, East

Andrea Stark was appointed Chief Executive of East England Arts in November 1999. She was previously Chief Arts Officer for the City of Dundee and during that time she established the city's new arts department. She was project director for the £10 million Dundee Contemporary Arts Centre, the largest arts Lottery project in Scotland at that time.

Andrea's early experience was in youth and community theatre. She moved in the mid-1980s to work in arts development in the north of England, where she became Head of Arts Development for Sunderland City Council. While at Sunderland she established the largest arts development agency for the arts in the north and was associated with setting up the National Glass Centre and the Year of Visual Arts.

Executive Director, East Midlands

When Laura Dyer was appointed Chief Executive of East Midlands Arts Board in 2000 at the age of 34, she was the youngest Chief Executive to be appointed to a regional arts board.

Previously, Laura was Head of Arts for the London Borough of Croydon, a post she held since 1997. She started her career in the arts as a production assistant to Jill Freud and Company, a small-scale theatre company. After completing an MA in drama at Essex University, she worked in a co-operative theatre company developing new writing and community arts projects. In 1991, she moved to the Garden Festival Wales as Drama Events Officer.

Her first local government job was as Arts Development Officer at the Borough Council of King's Lynn & West Norfolk. This period also involved a secondment to Eastern Arts, where she introduced the Lottery-funded Arts for Everyone programme.

Executive Director, London

Moira Sinclair became Executive Director of Arts Council England, London in March 2008, where she is responsible for the support and development of the arts throughout the capital, overseeing a portfolio of over 250 regularly funded organisations.

Moira was previously Director of Development for the London office, where she led on strengthening relationships with London’s mayor and 33 boroughs, and in placing the arts at the heart of the successful £9.4 million cross-sectoral Well London bid. She also worked closely with the other London agencies on cultural planning for the Thames Gateway and the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games.

Before joining the Arts Council in 2005, Moira was Director of Vital Arts, an award-winning arts and health organisation. She has also worked in local government, and in theatre and production management.

A graduate of Manchester University where she studied drama, Moira became a Clore Fellow in 2004/05.

Executive Director, North East

Mark Robinson has been Executive Director in the North East since 2005; previously, he was Director, Arts & Development. From 2000 to 2002 he was Head of Film, Media and Literature at Northern Arts.

He was previously Director of Arts & Humanities at the Centre for Lifelong Learning, University of Durham (1999-2000). As Director of Cleveland Arts (1993-99) he created Teesside Arts in Education, amongst other initiatives. Prior to this he worked as a freelance writer, tutor and literature worker, prison writer-in-residence, and directed the Writearound Festival. Before that he was an award-winning Head Chef in vegetarian catering.

Mark is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. He is also a widely published poet and critic. His most recent publication is A Balkan Exchange: 8 British and Bulgarian Poets (Arc, 2007). For 10 years he directed Scratch poetry magazine and press.

He regularly writes about arts strategy and policy on his blog Arts Counselling (http://artscounselling.blogspot.com).

Interim Executive Director, North West

For the last 13 years Aileen McEvoy has worked for North West Arts Board/Arts Council England, North West in a number of senior roles. Most recently as Director of External Relations she was responsible for arts development through external relationships, communications, resource development, education, diversity and creative industries. She was the regional manager of the national Creative Partnerships programme until March 2009. Aileen led on the implementation of the Arts Council’s first higher education strategy during 2007/08.

Aileen also has 12 years' experience of working in the museum and galleries sector. She held a number of high profile roles, including serving on the Tate Liverpool Advisory Council, Manchester Common Purpose Advisory Committee, and as a member of both the Department for Culture, Media and Sport’s Creative Economy Programme Working Group and their Policy Action Team for Arts and Sports. She currently leads for the Arts Council on the DCMS Working Group for UK Cities of Culture.

Executive Director, South East

Felicity Harvest is the Executive Director of Arts Council England, South East, and a member of the Arts Council's national executive board. After completing a drama degree, Felicity worked for many years in arts organisations, first as a theatre designer and subsequently as a publicist and administrator. Her jobs during this period ranged from being milliner at the RSC to running a community cinema in east London.

During the 1980s she was a partner in a consultancy firm specialising in local authority arts and leisure audits, and on training artists to work in institutional settings. She also was for a time a local authority member. She joined West Midlands Arts as Director of Development in 1990, moving to South East Arts as Chief Executive in 1996.

Interim Executive Director, South West

Chris Humphrey is currently Interim Executive Director for Arts Council England, South West. He joined South West Arts in 1992 and over the years has had a variety of roles, including Deputy Chief Executive and External Relations Director.

Chris went to art school in 1976 where he got a degree in fine art and, after an attempt at teaching, set up a community arts collective in Brighton. This was followed by several years of arts development work in Yorkshire, including membership of various Arts Council panels. Chris spent three years working in Thamesdown Community Arts in Swindon, followed by a further three years as Arts Officer for Elmbridge Borough Council in Surrey. During this period he was again a member of a number of Arts Council panels, both in the southern and south east regions. He lives in the market town of Axbridge in Somerset and is a governor at his children’s school.

Executive Director, West Midlands

Sally Luton was appointed Chief Executive of the West Midlands Regional Arts Board in November 1996 and is responsible for the strategic leadership and development of this regional cultural agency.

Sally has led the development of the board's capital strategy and has helped the region become the recipient of the highest amount of Lottery capital funding outside London. The board recently raised £1.3 million to establish the first Creative Industries Venture Capital Fund in March 2000. During her tenure, Sally has introduced new policies for the support of Black and minority ethnic arts, digital media, architecture and international arts and new strategic agreements with the region's 38 local authorities.

Before joining the board, Sally ran a craft gallery, restaurant and workshops complex in Cirencester and has worked in theatre administration, public relations and journalism. Sally holds an MBA from the University of Aston and is a Member of the Institute of Personnel & Development (MIPD).

Executive Director, Yorkshire

Andy Carver joined the Arts Council in April 2002. Prior to that he was briefly Chief Executive of Yorkshire Arts, the regional arts board for Yorkshire and the Humber, having worked for Yorkshire Arts and its predecessors in a variety of posts since 1992, including Deputy Chief Executive and Director of Corporate Affairs. Before joining Yorkshire Arts, he was coordinator of a professional community arts organisation in Corby, Northants, having worked in community work, further education teaching and as a community artist for 13 years. As an artist he worked in a variety of fields including graphics and printmaking, photography, music and circus.

Andy lives in a rural area near Holmfirth, West Yorkshire. His interests include music, reading and a lifetime obsession with Manchester City FC.