Through one-to-one interviews, the cohort will gain insight and inspiration from experts
who bring first-hand experience of the challenges and opportunities of creating a resilient cultural organisation
Deputy Director, Global Public Affairs and Communications, Guggenheim
As Deputy Director, Global Public Affairs and Communications, Rawlingson Plant provides strategic oversight of and direction to all aspects of Guggenheim global communications. He also guides reputation management and represents the institution globally in support of the Guggenheim Foundation’s initiatives.
Prior to joining the Guggenheim, Rawlingson Plant spent 19 years with Brunswick Group, an international strategic advisory firm. where he directed a global team as Managing Partner, Brunswick Arts, and developed the agency’s cultural business in Asia, the Middle East, and the United States. He has overseen crisis management and strategy development for organizations such as the Brooklyn Museum and the Norton Simon Museum in Los Angeles, and led a successful repositioning campaign for the Armory Show. He has supervised communications campaigns for numerous high-profile arts projects, including the V&A’s British Galleries, Art Dubai, the Saadiyat Island Cultural District in Abu Dhabi, and Louvre Abu Dhabi.
Rawlingson Plant is a trustee of Camden Arts Centre; founder and chair of the Helen Scott Lidgett Award; an advisor to the environmental arts program Project Pressure, the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, and the architecture and design nonprofit The World Around. He regularly lectures on cultural strategy at Sotheby’s Institute of Art in London and New York, and the University of Zurich. Before joining Brunswick Arts in 2001, Rawlingson Plant held positions at the Edinburgh International Festival, the Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Dulwich Picture Gallery, the National Portrait Gallery, and Tate.
He earned a Master of Arts degree in art history from University of St. Andrews.
Acting Artistic Director, Royal Shakespeare Company
Erica is Acting Artistic Director of the Royal Shakespeare Company. She joined the RSC in 2013 as Deputy Artistic Director and is especially proud of her contribution to the company’s new work programming, to ensuring the contemporary relevance of the repertoire and to our national partnerships with schools and theatres.
As Acting Artistic Director she has led the company through turbulent and challenging times, enacting a values-led, consultative approach to wide-reaching change. Erica has a passionate commitment to collaborative leadership and to equitable, inclusive practice. She will step down from the RSC in 2023 to pursue a freelance career.
Directing for the RSC includes Revolt, She Said. Revolt Again by Alice Birch, Hecuba by Marina Carr, The Seven Acts of Mercy by Anders Lustgarten, A Midsummer Night’s Dream: A Play for the Nation, The Earthworks by Tom Morton-Smith, Romeo and Juliet, Miss Littlewood, a new musical by Sam Kenyon, and A Museum in Baghdad by Hannah Khalil, The Winter’s Tale filmed for the BBC in lockdown, and FAITH, a city-wide two-day event for the city of Culture in Coventry.
Erica was Chief Executive and Artistic Director of Northern Stage (2005-2012), Artistic Director of Southwark Playhouse (1998-2000) and of The Gate Theatre, Notting Hill (2000-2004), where she established the Equity Fringe contract, enabling performers to be paid there for the first time. She chairs the Board of Theatre503 and is a Trustee of RTYDS.
She was one of the first fellows on the Clore Leadership Programme. In 2012 she won the TMA Award for Theatre Manager of the Year and was awarded an OBE for services to UK Theatre. In 2016 she won the Peter Brook Empty Space Special Achievement Award.
Founder, open-ended.design
Based in London, Suhair Khan works within the international creative industries to drive meaningful impact.
In over a decade at Google, her work has spanned arts and culture, early stage product design, sustainability, strategy and innovation. She has led global projects with artists, cultural institutions, fashion brands and the creative sector for Google Arts & Culture.
In 2020, she founded the non-profit platform openended.design to support artists, designers, and creative technologists. She is the chair of the board of Studio Wayne McGregor and advises the The Index Project and Design Museum. She sits on multiple juries and advisory panels in the cultural sector, including the Dezeen Awards, the London Design Biennale, and the Art Fund’s Museum of the Year Prize.
A graduate of Cornell and Harvard University, she is a visiting lecturer at Central Saint Martins University of the Arts.
Members of the leadership from the host partner organisations join the cohort for an informal lunch
to share their experiences of the topic under discussion in the day-long sessions.
Members of the leadership from the host partner organisations join the cohort for an informal lunch to share their experiences of the topic under discussion in the day-long sessions.
To be invited to our Gatherings and hear more about Future Connected, please sign up here.
