Clore Fellowships Announced including three scholars from India & Dubai
London, 14 July 2009

The Clore Leadership Programme, one of the world’s foremost development programmes for leadership in the cultural sector, founded and supported by the Clore Duffield Foundation, today announced nineteen new UK Fellows to join the Programme for 2009/10. This year, the Clore Leadership Programme has been enhanced to include four outstanding leaders from abroad: the group includes three Chevening Scholars supported by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office through the British Counci - Atul Kumar Mittal from Mumbai, Pooja Sood from New Delhi and Manal Ataya from Dubai with Margaret Yang from Hong Kong.

Sir John Tusa, Chair of the Clore Leadership Programme, said: "We interviewed some seventy candidates from the UK this year for nineteen places on the Clore Fellowship Programme. Our final selection was not an easy task. But I believe we have chosen nineteen outstanding Fellows who represent the nations in all their diversity, the regions, the art forms and the huge range of organisations that underpin the arts in the United Kingdom. They are entirely committed to their arts, to their audiences, to their ideals. We look forward hugely to working with them to realise their ambitions in the months ahead.”

Dame Vivien Duffield, Patron of the Programme, said: “I established the programme in 2003 in response to the clear demand to increase leadership skills in the cultural sector in the UK. By enabling this ever-increasing group of exceptional individuals to make a step-change in their skills and career potential, the Programme continues to have a positive impact on the cultural sector as a whole. I’m delighted that once again the Programme has attracted such strong candidates from a range of disciplines.”

The list of Clore Leadership Fellows for 2009/10 is:

Claire Antrobus from York; Manal Ataya from Dubai; Jonathan Best from Derbyshire; Rachel Brogan from Manchester; Kathy Cremin from Bradford; Gaylene Gould from London; Gill Hart from Cambridge; Richard Hawley from Birmingham; Lucinda Jarrett from Oxfordshire; Michelle Knight from Worcester; Atul Kumar Mittal from Mumbai; Rachel Millward from London; Joanne Moulton from London; Wanjiku Nyachae from Birmingham; Mark Prescott from London; Joanna Rowlands from Liverpool; Pooja Sood from New Delhi; Roxana Silbert from London; Fern Smith from Swansea; Christopher Stafford from London; Dorcas Walters from Birmingham; Jasmine Wilson from London; Margaret Yang from Hong Kong.

The Clore Leadership Programme is an initiative of the Clore Duffield Foundation, which aims to strengthen leadership across a wide range of cultural activities. This includes the visual and performing arts, film, heritage, museums, libraries and archives, creative industries and cultural policy and administration. It offers Fellowships and Short Courses for individual leaders, and training for members of Boards of Directors of cultural organisations. Since September 2004, 156 cultural leaders from the UK and abroad will have been awarded Fellowships on the Clore Leadership Programme.

The major funding partners for the Clore Leadership Programme are the Clore Duffield Foundation, the Cultural Leadership Programme, Advantage West Midlands, Arts Council of Wales, Arts and Humanities Research Council, Creative & Cultural Skills, Dancers’ Career Development, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office through the British Council, the Gatsby Charitable Foundation, the Home Affairs Bureau of the Government of Hong Kong Special Administrative Region through the Hong Kong Arts Development Council, the Linbury Trust, MLA (the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council), the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts (NESTA), Northwest Regional Development Agency, Skillset, the UK Film Council and the Wellcome Trust.

Biographies of the Clore Fellows (Chevening Scholars) 2009/10:

Chevening Scholarships (supported by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office through the British Council):

Pooja Sood
Lives in New Delhi, India. Director of KHOJ International Artists’ Association, independent Curator and Arts Management Consultant.

Atul Kumar Mittal
Lives in Mumbai, India. Artistic Director of The Company Theatre, Director of WORKSPACE an international centre for the performing arts and a theatre director, performer and practitioner.

Manal Ataya
Lives in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Director General of the Sharjah Museums Department, which manages 18 museums. Previously Deputy Director of the Sharjah Museums Department and Head of Interpretation for Sharjah Biennial 7.