Our Team
Martin Barden, Director
Martin established Culture Consultants Ltd in 2012. He previously held senior roles at Tate, the Royal Albert Hall, and Sadler’s Wells in London, and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney.
He has directed and developed complex membership and ticketing operations, sponsorship and philanthropy programmes, retail and catering contracts. During a decade at Tate he led Tate Members to become Europe’s largest venue-based loyalty scheme.
At the heart of his work is the development of effective customer relationship management programmes to create structured supporter journeys with continual revenue generating impact.
Martin has presented his vision and professional experiences at multiple international conferences, including in London, Amsterdam, Madrid, Edinburgh, Vienna, Dublin, Sydney and Canberra.
Martin is also a Trustee of the Henry Moore Foundation and a Director of HMF Enterprises.
Nadine Thompson, Associate Consultant
Nadine is a communications and marketing consultant with substantial director-level experience in the cultural sector. Having led communications and marketing teams in-house at Tate, the English National Opera and the Art Fund, she went on to be the COO of an international communications company working with a wide range of clients including Chateau Mouton Rothschild, the Arts Council Collection, the Institute of Contemporary Art, Whitworth Art Gallery in Manchester, Yorkshire Sculpture Park, Leighton House and the Royal Academy of Arts.
Nadine’s expertise spans brand and exhibition campaigns, capital development projects and re-launches, audience development strategies, corporate and crisis communications.
Nicole Newman, Associate Consultant
Following more than twenty years in senior fundraising roles in major arts organisations, Nicole established her fundraising consultancy in 2016. As Development Director at English National Ballet, English National Opera and Somerset House Trust she transformed revenue and capital fundraising. She also led corporate fundraising at the V&A and Tate, introducing many of the partnership models that still exist today. Her expertise combines strategic advice on culture change with practical support around feasibility, planning and delivery including case for support development and prospect identification. She runs training programmes internationally and provides leadership mentoring for cultural leaders and development teams.
Ray Cansick, Project Manager & IT Consultant
Ray is a chartered accountant by background and worked for EY (Ernst & Young) for 28 years, initially as an accountant but then in various IT management and leadership roles, working at the global level for 15 years. He has extensive experience managing programmes and projects, and also leading teams of project managers and business analysts, and being a member of project boards. More recently Ray has provided consultancy services to a number of not-for-profit organisations including the implementation of a CRM solution, new accounting software, an organisation-wide IT/IS review, IT/IS strategy development, the implementation of short term improvements and a new strategic software solution.
David Crowfoot, Associate Consultant
David with his wife Catherine established Footwork First in 2007, working with public, private and charity clients to help maximise their potential through improving and simplifying operations, driving lasting change and increasing impact; David also helps clients to access funding. His work is a combination of strategic development and deployment and operational process improvement. Before this David worked on change delivery in industry and managed multi-million pound government-funded programmes.
David’s recent clients include the Natural History Museum, National Museums Scotland, The Royal Armouries, the Associated Board of the Royal School of Music, Local Councils and the NHS.
The tactical improvements delivered with the Natural History Museum include reducing a high level of errors in processes, reducing their lead time, and Improved service delivery right first time. This has ensured that operational processes in the Museum are more efficient and deliver a higher quality output and outcome.
