back to listings SME Profile: Brian Debnam and Associates Ltd

42 Queens Road, Whitley Bay, Tyne and Wear, NE26 3BH

t: 0191 2510440 / 07714 769614  e: brian@briandebnam.co.uk w: briandebnam.co.uk

Arts, Heritage and Culture

Creatively Facilitating Change and Development

Brian Debnam

During a sustained and successful career in arts and cultural management he has worked in Australia, South Africa, UK, Europe and the Middle East at the interface between arts and cultural production and development, education, training and urban regeneration projects in partnerships with local, regional and national governments.

He has been successful at establishing and rejuvenating both large and small organisations and has chaired Boards of Trustees, government advisory panels and appointment and tender processes.

In 2004, he established his own consultancy practice that has since provided project management services, feasibility studies, organisational development and fundraising and business planning for over 70 different clients in UK, Europe, South Africa and the Middle East.

In Australia in the 1970s he worked for the Arts Council, planning and marketing touring arts, and for the Australia Council managing the international exchange funding programme.

After training at the National Institute of Dramatic Arts in Sydney, he pursued a career as a theatre director, directing over 80 productions in theatres all over Australia and as an artistic director led professional companies in Perth and Adelaide. In the mid-1980s he was appointed as Director of the Centre for the Performing Arts in Adelaide and headed arts training for the SA Government Department of Technical and Further Education.

Returning to UK in 1992 he was Head of Performing Arts for Northern Arts and from 1999 as General Manager and Director of Resources for the North Music Trust he was instrumental in the organisational development, business planning and fundraising for the Sage Gateshead (a £70 million Arts Lottery project).

Since forming his own consultancy practice in 2004, he has worked with for over 70 different clients Including Arts Council England, UK local authorities and many Arts and Heritage Lottery funded capital projects: national and regional governments and arts development agencies in South Africa and Europe and urban and rural regeneration agencies in the Middle East and South Africa.

Services Include

  • Strategic and Business Planning
  • Organisational Development
  • Project Coordination
  • Arts and Cultural Policy Development
  • Architectural briefing
  • Arts and Culture in Regeneration projects
  • Fundraising Strategy
  • Staff Development and Creativity Coaching
  • Mentoring and Training

Brian Debnam works closely with a number of associates who bring special skills and knowledge to individual projects; most recent partnerships with D3 Associates, Peter Stark, Andy Balman, David April, and Pete O’Hara. Teams are individually designed depending on briefs, duration of projects and locations.

Most recent work has been  

2015-16 Joburg Theatres – Organisational Development and new Board Induction

2015-16 Johannesburg Property Company. Business Planning for the Newtown Cultural precinct

2015-16 Johannesburg Property Company – business planning and strategic planning for Soweto Theatre and Amphitheatre

2016-18 Common Room of the Great North – Coordinating Consultant for - £7.1 million in capital funding – for the regeneration of the Grade2* listed Mining Institute in Newcastle upon Tyne

2019-20 Kingston on Hull City Council – Review and Options Appraisal for the redevelopment of the Hull City Hall

2020 Common Room of the Great North – Review, Covid recovery and new business plan for delayed opening in July 2021

2020-21 Curious Monkey – Business Plan mentoring

Brian Debnam currently serves as a Board member for GEM Arts and is Chair of the Whitley Bay Carnival

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