ArtsProfessional reveals the career paths of the sectors senior managers.
Director, PM&M Consulting Solutions Ltd, London (2005 to date)
Consultancy work enables me to use all the strategic and practical skills I have acquired over the past 20 years and, importantly, to share them with clients and through my training courses in marketing and communications. Running my own company is ideal: I gain new energy from each client and have the flexibility to maintain my own writing alongside.
Marketing Manager: Education, Tate Modern and Tate Britain (20022005)
This job, an arts marketing role dedicated to education, involved providing information and seeking out niche and hard-to-reach audiences using strategic direct marketing underpinned by detailed monitoring, and audience visualisation for both core and new audiences. Tates education programme matured from something largely hidden away to having a substantial public profile.
Writing and freelancing (19962002)
I took time out to write a novel and short pieces while living in some intriguing countries. Freelance jobs in the commercial sector showed me that rigorous monitoring and strong visualisation of the customer could put the science into marketing. I was with BMR Ltds direct marketing team when they won the Precision Marketing Response Awards in 1999.
Promotions and Marketing Manager, Coin Street Community Builders (19951996)
At the iconic Oxo Tower on the South Bank, part of the heroic Coin Street endeavours, the marketing and PR had multiple targets public visitors and events-goers; retailers, restaurateurs and applied artists to occupy the commercial spaces; and government bodies, academics and the local community to raise support for the organisation. I developed a greater understanding of market segmentation and appropriate messaging, and worked with some fantastic graphic designers and photographers.
Senior Tourism Officer, Darlington Borough Council (19901995)
Following a year studying for a Tourism MSc in Glasgow during its year as City of Culture, I went to Darlington to establish a tourism section within the Economic Development Department. This was my first taste of strategy-setting, and I got hooked on the psychology of marketing.
Assistant Public Relations Officer, Southampton City Council (19881989)
My boss taught me much about journalism and PR, and I worked on the launch of the citys pioneering geothermal heating project, the Old Town Walls project, and tourism, arts and cultural provision. I credit Southampton City Art Gallery with opening my eyes to contemporary art.
Education and Welfare VP, Southampton University Students Union (19861987)
I quickly learned how to brazen it out in a public arena, and faced some tough marketing challenges: persuading students to drink in moderation and to practise safe sex!