Leila d’Aronville is an active cultural leader and advocate based in the North East of England, with over 22 years’ experience in the creative industries. She is the Founder of North East Cultural Freelancers (NECF), a pioneering network supporting almost 6,000 freelancers through campaigning, wellbeing initiatives, and strategic partnerships - ensuring freelancers are represented within sector development. Leila also leads Northern Roots, where she champions inclusive programming and artist-led cultural development. Her career spans roles in cultural education, network delivery, theatre making and creative production - having worked on some of the largest and smallest programmes in the North East. Her work is rooted in collaboration, representation, and systemic change across the cultural landscape.

Joe is a Communications Officer for Arts Council England's North Area Team. He started at the Arts Council in Customer Services before a stint in the London office as a Comms Assistant and Officer. Joe is originally from Teesside. He is a graduate of the National Youth Theatre. He studied Drama at the University of Manchester, where he began playwrighting, going onto to win the MIFTA award for Best New Writing for his play A Game of Two Halves, which performed at the John Thaw Theatre. Since graduating he has worked as a playwright for Pleasance Associate Theatre Company 'Spies Like Us'. He co-wrote their comedy-thriller Speed Dial, which played at the Pleasance Dome at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 2022.

Adam leads on the Community Foundation North East’s funding priorities and its support for charities and community organisations. He has overall responsibility for engaging and developing partnerships with other funding bodies and partners and leads on media partnerships and wider public relations. He manages the programmes and partnerships section which delivers grant making programmes, pro bono support offer and events, marketing and communications. Prior to the foundation he worked in cultural venues and at Ticketmaster UK setting up Ticketmaster’s regional marketing function in Manchester before becoming the first head of Ticketmaster Scotland. He is a trustee of 360Giving and Sunderland Empire Theatre Trust.

Kema Sikazwe, also known as Kema Kay, was brought up in the west end of Newcastle. Kema came from a musical background with a passion for rap, singing, and songwriting which he developed in a local youth project where he spent most of his time as a teen. He's gone on to perform at the biggest venues around Newcastle, headlining his show at the O2 Academy. During his career, he became interested in acting and landed a main role in BAFTA and Palme D’or award-winning film I Daniel Blake and a role in Lady Macbeth. Eager to learn and build his craft he wrote and performed his one-man show ‘Shine’ which played at Live Theatre in Newcastle and received 4-star reviews in The Herald and The Guardian. From touring 108 shows, releasing his album "This Day" to joining the presenting team for The Great North Run 2025 on BBC One, no telling what he's up to next!

Laura is Dean of the School of Arts and Creative Industries at Teesside University and Director of MIMA. Professional research interests circle around issues of art and its relationship to the civic realm. Laura has spent 20 years working in curatorial roles in art galleries in the UK and abroad including Tate, FACT, MOCAD (Detroit) the New Museum (New York) and Site Gallery. She has worked on major city wide festivals including Liverpool Biennial ('04,'06 and'08), Abandon Normal Devices ('08 and '10) and Art Sheffield ('11 and '15). Laura's academic research focuses on strategies and tactics employed by visual artists whose work critiques aspects of contemporary civic society. She focuses on a small number of case studies on artists who directly investigate the social, geo-physical and economic infrastructure of technology.

Heather is Creative Place Programmes Manager at Tees Valley Combined Authority playing a key role in developing, designing and delivering the £20.5m Growth Programme for the Creative and Visitor Economies for Tees Valley as well as the work of Tees Valley Creative Education Partnership. Heather has over twenty years of experience of working in the arts and culture sector. Previous roles include Deputy Director at Eden Arts in Cumbria, where she co-founded the large town centre festival The Winter Droving in Penrith and outdoor touring cinema programme Picnic Cinema, including the now iconic screenings of Withnail and I at Uncle Monty’s cottage! Prior to this she was Company Manager at Tees Valley Dance supporting the Artistic Director with successful international tours and large-scale dance in education programmes.

Hannah Walker is a comedy performer and theatre maker. She creates autobiographical shows to open up conversations about stigmatized aspects of everyday life. Subjects that are mundane, curious, dangerous or delightful, she makes performances that are relatable and entertaining for her audiences. Hannah is an Associate Artist with The Six Twenty and regularly performs with them. She co-hosts PUG: an alternative performance night, co-facilitates Coax: a performance workshop and is a reader with InterAct Stroke Support.  She also won the Performing Artist of the Year award at last years NE Culture Awards!

David has been writing about arts and culture in the North East for almost 40 years. He became Arts Editor of The Journal in 1991 and edited the Culture magazine for 12 years. Currently he writes for the website Cultured North East (www.culturednortheast.co.uk0, covering the many stories that arise from the region’s burgeoning arts scene. He also reviews plays and concerts and interviews some of the many interesting and talented people who contribute to the North East being such a wonderfully vibrant place to live.

Graeme Whitfield is editor of The Journal and business editor for Reach in the North East, covering The Journal, The Chronicle, The Gazette and their websites, as well as overseeing North East content for the BusinessLive site. He has worked at Reach since 1998 and has previously held roles including news editor and Northumberland editor.

Stephen Wiper is the Creative Darlington Manager for Darlington Borough Council. He thinks culture can help us to explore ideas, express ourselves, appreciate other perspectives, picture possibilities, and enjoy life more fully. Since studying Fine Art in Newcastle, Stephen has worked in creative roles over 37 years in Yorkshire, Northumberland, Tyne and Wear and County Durham, from schools, arts centres, libraries, museums, government funded bodies and local authorities. He believes that creative people’s vision, pragmatism, idealism, and ingenuity, alongside our communities, surroundings, heritage, and curiosity, generate brilliant practice which brightens many lives.