Sharon’s experience extends across the cultural sector, higher education, and local government. Her portfolio includes business and strategy development at a local, regional, and national level, organisational change, and management and leadership development.
With over 25 years’ experience of leadership and management in the cultural sector, local government, and higher education in the UK, she has worked with a wide range of stakeholders, art forms and scale of organisation; from independent creatives and charities to national bodies and institutions within the UK and internationally.
For over 10 years, Sharon led one of the foremost leadership interventions within the cultural sector, the Clore Fellowship Programme, developing senior leaders from across the world and partnering with over 40 funding bodies, philanthropists, trusts & foundations.
As Public Engagement Fellowship Monitor at the Welcome Trust, she oversaw the Trust’s multi-million-pound investment in international Public Engagement leaders bridging the gap between science, health, academia, and the arts. She is currently leading a skills audit of the cultural sector in Ireland on behalf of Cultural and Creative Industries Skillnet and an analysis of production skills in the visual arts in Ireland for the Arts Council.
Her work in place-based cultural and creative strategy development includes clients such Bolton Council, Colchester City Council, Essex County Council, Salisbury Place Partnership, and Torridge District Council.
She has developed capacity building programmes for the British Council in Mexico, Nepal, and Iraq; for the Association of Local Authority Arts Officers in Ireland; evaluated the Women’s Leaders Southwest Programme aimed at emerging producers in England; and delivered a range of organisational change and development programmes for clients such as the Eden Project, English Pen, De La Warr Pavilion, Mercury Theatre, Manchester International Festival, and Festival International, among others.
As a certified Coach and NLP practitioner she has led the assessment of over 2,500 international cultural leaders, interviewed in excess of 1,000, and recruited over 300 cultural professionals from across the breadth of the sector.
Sharon has a background as an artist, designer, arts manager and academic, having lectured at undergraduate and postgraduate level in arts management and marketing; is an advisory committee member of The Point, Eastleigh, and a ceramicist.
She has been an assessor for Arts Council Ireland’s Next Generation grants scheme and leads on Counterculture’s work in Ireland.