Jude Kelly
Jude Kelly is Artistic Director of Southbank Centre, Britain’s largest cultural institution.
She founded Solent People’s Theatre and Battersea Arts Centre, and was the Artistic Director of the York Festival and Mystery Plays. She later became the founding director of the West Yorkshire Playhouse. In 1997, she was awarded an OBE for her services to theatre. She has directed over 100 productions including the Royal Shakespeare Company, the National Theatre and the Châtalet in Paris.
In 2002 Jude founded Metal, which through its artistic laboratory spaces provides a platform where artistic hunches can be pursued in community contexts. It has creative bases in Liverpool, Southend-On-Sea and Peterborough.
Jude is chair of Metal, member of the London Cultural Strategy Group, and is Visiting Professor at Kingston and Leeds Universities and the Shanghai Centre for the Performing Arts. She is a member of the London 2012 Cultural Olympiad Board.
“The School for Creative Start Ups provides a tremendous opportunity for creative people to learn how to believe in themselves and then go and get the skills to back up their ideas. Most of us rely on a mixture of luck and judgement - and some of that makes a good story to share. Networking, magpying and rifling through other people’s histories of failures and successes - it all counts.”