Joining the team as partners are Illy Jaffar, Vicii Kirkpatrick, Beatriz Pizarro-Aparicio, Kate Ward and Val Young. They come on board at an incredibly exciting time for Counterculture as it expands and diversifies its range of services.
Tom Watson, President of Counterculture, has welcomed the appointments:
“We are delighted to welcome this incredibly talented team of new partners to Counterculture as we expand our portfolio and broaden our range of client services. Our team’s expertise ranges from business and strategic planning, project management and events, to fundraising, finance, and management services. Between them our new partners bring creativity, nous and experience from across the arts, culture and charity sectors, as well as work with iconic brands in business and commercial sectors.”
Counterculture’s five new partners are as follows:
Illy Jaffar – An award-winning creative marketing and communications leader with over 25 years of experience in retail, entertainment and global iconic brands, Illy cut his commercial teeth at Asda and rapidly rose through the trading floor ranks to become a buyer. After six years managing, producing and tour managing a Mercury Music winning act, Illy then joined Pernod Ricard and spent twelve years in senior global marketing roles. His passion for all things cultural informed ground-breaking partnerships such as Xfm and Jameson. More recently he worked with legendary rock band Iron Maiden in bringing their multi award winning beer Trooper, from a pub dream to market.
Find out more about Illy here
Vicii Kirkpatrick – Vicii has many years of experience in the commercial and charity sectors, working in a variety of roles covering both financial and management accounts. More recently she has spent eight years at the National Union of Students, more latterly as the Finance Director where she helped guide the organisational design programme that led to costs savings of c.£3.5million. Vicii is also a trustee and a member of the audit and risk committee of University of Manchester Students’ Union. She has a HNC in business and finance, is a fully qualified CIMA accountant and has a MSc in Strategy from Manchester Metropolitan University.
Find out more about Vicii here
Beatriz Pizarro-Aparicio – Following a prolific senior career working in Digital Marketing, Advertising, and Communications through B2B and B2C industries, Beatriz brings across over ten years’ worth of experience into the Arts and Cultural sector. Former clients include J.P. Morgan, UKRI, De Beers Group, AstraZeneca, and Arizona State University. Her particular areas of interest and research lie in museum partnerships and collaborations, and exploring strategic, long-term, sustainable revenue models for museums and institutions. Beatriz has a degree in French and Francophone Studies and is currently studying her Postgraduate at Goldsmiths College in Museum and Galleries Entrepreneurship.
Find out more about Beatriz here
Kate Ward – Kate has over a decade’s senior management experience in the European festivals and events sector. As General Manager of London International Festival of Theatre from and then Executive Director of In Between Time, she has been responsible for business planning and operations, fundraising, and financial management. As a Producer and Consultant to organisations in the culture and creative sectors clients include The Architecture Centre, British Council, London Borough Ealing, Luke Jerram Studios, and the leadership programme Women Leaders South West. Kate is a Trustee of Bristol based charity Creative Youth Network and Chair of its Artistic Steering Group.
Find out more about Kate here
Val Young – Val has worked as a senior manager within the arts sector including Manchester City Galleries, the Art Fund, the Arts Catalyst and the Royal Exchange Theatre. With a track record of developing and delivering successful income generation strategies, Val specialises in fundraising strategy, ambitious large-scale grant applications, securing funds from public sources, philanthropy, and strategic partnerships. She has also served on Senior Leadership Teams supporting organisation-wide strategic development, planning and management. Prior to working in the arts, Val enjoyed a successful career in local government where she secured substantial funds in support of large-scale economic development programmes and cultural projects.
Find out more about Val here