Creative Enterprise Development Office

As RKE Development Officer, Stephanie supports students, staff, and recent graduates from across the institution and in the wider community with creative enterprise support, funding, and engagement initiatives. She coordinates the newly developed Creative Enterprise Development Office.

As Head of Engagement, Deborah works with her team to develop and deliver the full range of Engagement services, programmes and initiatives at the Conservatoire. She has recently developed the Engagement Strategy (25/26 to 29/30), which is central to the team’s ambitions and defines work across four areas: Creative Enterprise, Innovation, Public Engagement, and Engagement Culture & Infrastructure. Deborah works alongside Knowledge Exchange colleagues in Scotland and through Conservatoires UK to advocate for the specific strengths and challenges of small specialist creative arts institutions.

As the KE Development Assistant, Gallia supports the Engagement team to deliver on Enterprise, Innovation, and Public Engagement through administrative support and project operations. In addition, Gallia manages the staff Athenaeum Awards and the Engagement Committee.

Sarah is the Engagement Development Assistant within the Research and Engagement team at RCS. She manages the Engage Desk, and provides support to the RCS community with maintaining and developing their academic profiles on Pure.

She has a background as an researcher, with a focus on community energy resistance movements and critical political theory. Alongside her academic work, she has held a variety of roles across arts and music venues and festivals, both in Scotland and Catalonia. She is a committee member of the New Glasgow Society and holds a Master’s degree in Political Ecology.

In her role as Impact Officer, Verena develops new approaches for capturing and amplifying the impact of the work produced by our staff, students and alumni, their projects and partners. With a background in the creative application of new technologies, she is particularly excited to be working on the next iteration of Innovation Studio, supporting creative experimentation, collaboration and interdisciplinary work at RCS.

Rachael Arnold has over twenty years of experience as a leader in the creative and social enterprise sector. She builds impactful businesses and turns ideas into reality. As Chief Executive of The Future Economy Company, she leads an all-female executive team across a wide range of innovative programmes that up-skill, empower and connect the creative community. Join Rachael to chat through what your creative/professional practise, what are the challenges and how to create balance, make money and enjoy your work, positivity and creating strategies for success are the focus of these short and sharp sessions.

Briana Pegado FRSA is a fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. She was named one of Scotland’s 30 Under 30 Inspiring Young Women in 2017 and has won a number of awards for her work as a social entrepreneur as founder of the Edinburgh Student Arts Festival (ESAF) in the creative industries over the last eight years. She has a Master of Arts with Honours in Sustainable Development from the University of Edinburgh and studied for an MBA at Central Saint Martins in 2018. She has worked across the National Theatre of Scotland, Custom Lane – Scotland’s Centre for Design & Making, Voluntary Arts Scotland (now Creative Lives), and the contemporary art world. In 2019 she became Chief Executive of Creative Edinburgh and a Co-Director of Creative Informatics an Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) funded project to invest in data-driven innovation in the creative industries across the Lothians in partnership with the University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh Napier University, and Codebase the largest tech cluster in Europe. She is now a data-driven innovation ambassador for the Edinburgh Futures Institute.

She was Chair of the board and then interim director of YWCA Scotland – The Young Women’s Movement, former Co-Director of We Are Here Scotland, and former Creative Director of Fringe of Colour Film Festival.

Currently, she is an anti-racism facilitator and governance consultant who has worked with the Scottish Policy and Research Exchange (SPRE), the Universities Policy Exchange Network (UPEN), Africa in Motion Festival (AiM), Be United, Glasgow Museums, Glasgow International Festival, Glasgow Life, Stellar Quines Theatre Company, Rape Crisis Scotland, and Craft Scotland.

She is the Chair of the Scottish Government Culture Fair Work Task Force. She published her first book Make Good Trouble: A Practical Guide to the Energetics of Disruption in April 2024.

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Two-time Law Award winner Philip Hannay is Managing Director of Cloch Solicitors Limited, a Scottish legal boutique specialising in business law & intellectual property and is well-known for assisting creative entrepreneurs in generating money from ideas and artistic practice. Philip ranks in the UK top 10 (only Scot) for appearances at the United Kingdom Intellectual Property Office in relation to contentious matters. In addition to current committee positions as Governor of the Baillie’s Institution and Council Member of The Stair Society, Philip holds senior academic positions in the University of Strathclyde School of Law.  

David has led Brett Nicholls Associates, a small growing accounting and consulting practice, since 2018. He is passionate about building a purpose-driven business and proudly achieved B Corp certification in 2023. David’s firm has many creative sector clients, and he provides general accounting and tax advice as well as specialist support in Creative Industry Tax Reliefs.

Julia is a multi-award-winning theatre artist and co-Artistic Director of Glasgow-based theatre company Disaster Plan (Tero Buru, Move). Over two decades working as a writer, director and performer across stage and screen, she has gained a reputation for creating ground-breaking, formally fearless work. Julia and her plays have toured widely and have been produced internationally. Her productions won multiple awards, including Fringe Firsts (Heads Up), Critics Awards For Theatre Scotland (Beats) and the Dario Fo Award for Drama (Blow Off). She formed Disaster Plan with long-term collaborator Kieran Hurley as a commitment to keeping their radical, independent performance practice alive. The company’s first production, Move, was the flagship Made In Scotland production at the Edinburgh Festival 2020. In response to the pandemic, Julia transformed the show, initially conceived as an intimate studio theatre play, into an epic outdoor performance, which then toured to 12 of Scotland’s most beautiful and remote beaches.