Board and Advisers

Graham Devlin CBE is TippingPoint’s chair. He is a writer and director in both theatre and opera, a senior arts manager and a cultural strategist. As an artist, he has directed in the UK, Europe, the United States and Australia for, amongst others, the National Theatre, Aldeburgh Festival, Scottish Opera and Glyndebourne. As a manager, he has run theatres, festivals and his own successful touring theatre company Major Road. In 1997 he was appointed Deputy Secretary General and Acting Chief Executive of the Arts Council of England. Since leaving the Arts Council he has worked as a consultant, specialising in the field of cultural strategy.

John Ashton CBE, one of the world’s top climate diplomats, is now an independent commentator and adviser on the politics of climate change. From 2006-12 he served as Special Representative for Climate Change to three successive UK Foreign Secretaries, spanning the current Coalition and the previous Labour Government. He was a cofounder and, from 2004-6, the first Chief Executive of the think tank E3G. From 1978-2002, after a brief period as a research astronomer, he was a career diplomat, with a particular focus on China. He is a visiting professor at the London University School of Oriental and African Studies, and a Distinguished Policy Fellow at the Grantham Institute for Climate Change at Imperial College. A list of John’s latest speeches and writings is here.

Judith Knight MBE is co-director of Artsadmin, a producing and development organisation for interdisciplinary artists based at Toynbee Studios London which she founded in 1979. In recent years Artsadmin has focused much of its work on climate change and is a member of the European Imagine 2020 Network, through which it works to encourage more environmentally responsible touring, produces its Two Degrees festival and commissions projects such as the public artwork Plunge by Michael Pinsky in collaboration with LIFT. Judith is a member of the Julie’s Bicycle theatre group, the Create Advisory Group and is on the Board of IETM.

Bob Hull is former Head of the Environment Policy Division in European Commission and Director in the European Economic and Social Committee, Brussels. On retirement he completed a postgraduate degree in theatre text and performance studies at Kings College London and RADA. He is a consultant working on sustainability issues with a special interest in theatre and the environment as well as a consultant dramaturg. Board member Theatre Sans Frontieres and Queens Hall Arts, Hexham Abbey Festival; Council member Newcastle University; Chairman Hexham Development Trust.

Dr Joe Smith is Senior Lecturer in Environment at the open University. All his work seeks to promote better understanding of - and action on - global environmental change issues. This breaks down into three linked areas of research and commentary: public engagement and the media, the politics of consumption, and contemporary environmental history. His research portfolio includes a long running strand of work on media decision-making and environment (1996-), the experimental public engagement and research project Interdependence Day (2006-) and the broadcast and online learning and research project Creative Climate. He tweets as @citizenjoesmith, and blogs at citizenjoesmith.wordpress.com.

Advisers

Rose Fenton OBE is Director of the Free Word Centre. She founded LIFT (London International Festival of Theatre) in 1980 and was its Co-Director until 2005. Since then Rose worked with artists and organisations internationally, developing and facilitating projects across Europe and the Middle East. She has worked as an arts policy advisor, co-authoring the Arts, Culture and Creativity Strategy for the London Olympic Park post-2012; and was part of a team developing the shortlisted bid for Lublin, Poland to become European Capital of Culture 2016. She is a Mentor for the Clore Leadership Programme and sits on the boards of Dance Umbrella and Aerowaves.

Dr Chris West trained as an engineer and then as a zoologist. He has undertaken research on gorillas in Rwanda foxes in Britain and soil animals on South Georgia. He then worked on breeding endangered species at Jersey and Bristol Zoos- before moving to administration of environmental science. For 8 years he was Director of the UK Climate Impacts Programme which works at the boundary between research and society on impacts of climate change and on adapting to those impacts. He now carries out a similar role at the Environment Agency’s Climate Ready Support Services.

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