Ayla’s work in the creative industries consists of business and strategic planning, facilitating change management, multi-stakeholder transformation processes and supporting business resilience. She works consistently with creatives, CEO’s and teams within both large and small organisations nationally and internationally. She regularly leads creative business initiatives and complex partnership negotiations to secure partnership investment and significant income. Recent work has focused on strategic approaches to growing place-based creativity, supporting businesses to re-vision or re-position after COVID and organisational development initiatives.
After a varied career as a senior manager within arts organisations, she trained in Relational Dynamics and Analytical Network Business Coaching. She uses these people-centered skills in her role as a business consultant and organisational coach – sensitively working with people to navigate complex challenges and enable fresh thinking. She excels in encouraging progressive approaches to leadership, and her approach supports power sharing, diversity, ownership and co-operation.
Ayla has had a career-long interest in the role of creative organisations and societal change. For the last 10 years she has specialised in place-based (partnership or consortium) approaches and developed many programmes and partnerships to develop professional work and which engage communities under-represented in culture.
Current/most recent clients include Arts Council of England, Manchester International Festival, Abandon Normal Devices (Manchester), Blueprint (London), Common Wealth (Bradford), DiverseCity (South West /London), Clean Break (London), Venture Arts (Manchester), Scottee & Friends (National), Manchester City Council, The Old Waterworks Artists Studios (Southend) Link4Life (Rochdale), IOU (Halifax), LeftCoast (Blackpool), Gob Squad (Berlin). Most of her clients are creative leaders and producers in the sector and passionate advocates of diversity within the arts, and for the role of the arts in relation to wider social change. She was a trustee (from 2010) and then chair of Quarantine (Manchester) from 2014 – 2018.