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The brave heart of a true pioneer

Lisa Baxter, founder and CEO of The Experience Business and partnership manager of the Centre for Cultural Value’s Collaborate programme died at the end of last year. Here the former director of the Centre, Ben Walmsley and Lisa’s husband, Neil Palmer, pay tribute to an extraordinary woman.

Ben Walmsley and Neil Palmer
6 min read

Ben Walmsley writes:

I first met Lisa in Leeds in 2008 when I was introduced to her by colleagues at what was then Audiences Yorkshire. I immediately recognised a professional soulmate – someone as obsessed with audiences and their experiences as I was, but also someone striving to find innovative solutions to questions of audience development and engagement.

I collaborated with Lisa from that initial meeting – bringing her into the University of Leeds to challenge the thinking of arts marketing students, engaging her expertise on research bids and, most recently, inviting her to be Partnership Manager for the Centre for Cultural Value’s Collaborate programme, a role she undertook for five years with her trademark panache and dedication.

Lisa was unique; a very special combination of creative disruption, heartfelt empathy and determined focus. She straddled that rare ground between practice and research, carving out a space that was often hard to define but was always open, inviting and generous.

And our co-director at the Centre Anne Torreggiani adds:

“Lisa was a brilliant storyteller, but one generous enough to encourage others to tell their own stories, with the same craft, confidence and charm. She never gave in to reductive, managerialist ideas about what our work is for or how it should be done.

“She reminded us that we are mediators of vital, transformative experiences, which demands as much emotional honesty as honed facilitator flair. She was not afraid to challenge orthodoxy – and I always felt energised to hear about the bold new ideas she synthesized into her practice. Lisa had the intellectual curiosity and brave heart of a true pioneer.

The Centre’s former Project Coordinator, Andy Hill, who worked very closely with Lisa on Collaborate also commented:

“As a tireless champion of arts-led dialogue, Lisa shaped and supported key enquiries into collaborative research and creative approaches to evaluation, leaving an admirable professional legacy. She infused our work with her spirit and championed our shared causes with an unmatched passion and incredible resolve.

“More importantly, it was the warmth and generosity of her approach, the balance of her perspective and her spirit of friendship that will be most missed. Lisa was rightly impatient for change and tireless in her urgent questioning of the many imbalances and inequalities both in the cultural sector and wider society.”

Lisa is irreplaceable. She leaves a rich legacy for the arts and cultural sector – not only in the UK, but also in the far-flung places where her worked touched the work of scores of cultural organisations, venues and communities.

Although Lisa’s work and influence will live on through the Centre and elsewhere, she will be very deeply missed by everyone whose personal and professional lives she touched with such distinctive humanity and impact.

Neil Palmer writes:

If you knew Lisa through work, you would know her as Lisa Baxter. For family and friends, she was Lisa Palmer (Felisa, Feli).

As her husband, I was often asked what her job was and each time I had to stop and think before launching into an explanation of what it is I think she did. That’s partly because her role changed and evolved over time but also because she offered something unique that could never be easily pigeonholed into a neat title. Lisa certainly shaped her own identity in her work.

As a teenager, Lisa was bowled over by watching her first Shakespeare play. After A levels, she blagged her way onto an Arts Foundation course in Wakefield, going on to complete a Theatre Studies degree at Warwick University. Having worked in London on magazines such as Rock Power early on, she was drawn back to the world of the arts via a master’s degree in European Cultural Policy and Arts Administration (again at Warwick). This is where I was fortunate enough to meet and fall in love with her.

The arts world is indebted to her teacher, Mr White, for helping to give Lisa the confidence to pursue her heart, and also to Clive Barker at Warwick for guiding her towards the MA when she was unsure which direction to take. Initial roles included marketing at Birmingham Arts Marketing and at Warwick Arts Centre.

Lisa’s decision to go freelance was taken in a deep breath in Kenilworth Park during the solar eclipse in the summer of 1999. She subsequently set up the Experience Business in 2012, where she worked with organisations across many artforms – theatre, dance, opera, galleries, museums clown doctors – and across the globe.

Continues…

Lisa is survived by her husband Neil and their three daughters – Libby, Esme and Iris

So, how I would describe Lisa’s recent role? She was always passionately conscious that the audience experience was key. In a world where traditional artforms compete with the more immediate gratification of television, mobile phones, gaming and the internet, she considered what experiences would help maintain and build new audiences.

Her aim was to help/enable/encourage organisations to take a long hard look at themselves and identify how to make significant and meaningful change. For her, audiences had to be at the centre of core values and day-to-day working – from the overarching brand and ethos to the nitty gritty details of everyday.

Organisations had to want to change. Lisa was always honest about her skillset. She didn’t tell clients what they should do, she held up a mirror to them and drew out the latent ideas and wisdom within teams that needed to be given a chance to shine.

Sometimes I would say that Lisa ran workshops to help arts organisations make the changes they needed to make. But this wouldn’t even begin to do justice to Lisa’s ability to effect meaningful conversations, or to her passion to engage people, or her determination to ensure every speech, workshop or pitch was meticulously planned.

I feel enormous pride for what Lisa has achieved in her working life. She loved her work travels around the world, she made valuable friendships and left a lasting impression wherever she went.

Lisa died in the early hours of Friday 27 December 2024. We discovered she had cancer last October and she was cared for initially at Leeds General Infirmary, then at Jimmy’s and finally at the wonderful Overgate Hospice in Elland. Thanks to her, our home is full of love. This July would have been our 25th wedding anniversary. We have three beautiful daughters – Libby, Esme and Iris.

Lisa Palmer (née Baxter) 1965–2024