John Newbigin
Ambassador for the Creative Industries and Co-Founder, Creative England
Co-founder and first Chair of Creative England, a public/private partnership that invests in creative content businesses and digital technology, a position he held between 2011 and 2018. John was Special Advisor to the UK Minister for Culture, The Right Honorable Chris Smith MP, and was part of the team that developed the UK government’s first policies for the creative industries in the 1990s. He was Head of Corporate Relations for Channel 4 Television from 2000-2005. He was Chair of the British Council’s Advisory Group for Arts and Creative Economy and was, until recently, a member of the UK government’s Creative Industries Council, co-chairing its Working Group on Regions. He is currently London Mayor Sadiq Khan’s Ambassador for the Creative Industries, a Board member of the London Economic Action Partnership and the Mayor’s Cultural Leadership Board for London. He is a Visiting Fellow at Goldsmiths, University of London and an Honorary Professor at the University of Hong Kong. He was awarded an OBE for “services to creative industries and the arts” in 2015.
