Richie Turner biography

Richie is a freelance innovation and business development adviser, working in the private, public and voluntary sectors. He is also a freelance consultant, trainer and lecturer in creative entrepreneurship, innovation and arts management (including the MA Arts Management at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama). Currently he is working as Projects Director: Enterprise and Innovation at Artis Community (the community arts organisation for RCT). He is also a Member of the Arts Council of Wales (appointed by Welsh Government Ministers in 2010), where he has special responsibility for equalities and diversity for the Arts Council.

Recently he has worked with Monmouthshire County Council, on a wide range of innovation and service design initiatives, and with Torfaen County Borough Council on both culture change and arts led regeneration plans. He has undertaken innovation and business development for many cultural organisations including S4C, Butetown History and Arts Centre, TaikaBox and Jukebox Collective.

Richie is an Associate of The Satori Lab (public sector innovation) and Native HQ (social media development), he is an external assessor for BBC Children in Need and voluntary Chairman of SWICA Carnival.

Previously he was a partner and Director of Creative Enterprise Consulting Ltd, co-founder and Deputy Director of the Global Academy at the University of Wales (where he jointly established the Prince of Wales Innovation Scholarships - at the time the world’s highest paid PhD scholarship and Wales’ first formal partnership with MIT: Massachusetts Institute of Technology) , the first Wales Manager for NESTA (the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts), and has worked at the Arts Council of Wales as Head of its Arts for All Lottery programmes and Senior Strategic Development Officer.

He was also Director of Cardiff and District Multicultural Arts (CADMAD) and a co-founded Nofit State Circus in 1986. He still lives in Cardiff.