The funded 12-month leadership programme supports brilliant doers to become decision-makers and helps launch the next generation of cultural leaders. Established in memory of producer and Executive Director Imogen Kinchin, the Fellowship is built in the spirit of Imogen, who broke ceilings and then helped others break their own.

Ben joins a cohort of eight emerging cultural leaders from across theatre, dance, producing, artist development and independent practice. The inaugural Fellows are Aisha Zia, Alessandra Hồng Duyên Zavagno, Beccy D’Souza, Ben Anderson, Connor Allen, Franny Rafferty, Kat Joyce and Vanessa Maria Mirza.

As Creative & Executive Director of Lincoln Arts Centre, Ben leads programming, commissioning, artist development, fundraising and organisational strategy, positioning the Centre as a home for new artists and new ideas. He also has strategic responsibility for the University of Lincoln’s Barbican Creative Hub, an award-winning redevelopment providing creative workspace and R&D facilities.

Ben is a cultural leader working across the arts, higher education and creative industries. Before joining Lincoln Arts Centre, he was Executive Director of Warts and All Theatre and Creative Producer of In Good Company / Derby Theatre. He is also Interim Co-Chair and Trustee of Contact in Manchester.

The Fellowship launched on 24 September with an inaugural supper at partner venue Bourne & Hollingsworth Buildings.

The Fellowship’s founding principles are empowerment rather than gatekeeping, cross-sector connection, access and fairness, and a two-way conversation about what future leaders need from the cultural sector.

For Lincoln and Lincolnshire, Ben’s participation is an opportunity to put the region on a national cultural platform.

The Fellowship brings together emerging leaders from across the country and creates a valuable opportunity to connect Lincolnshire with ideas, people and practice from well beyond the region. Through the programme, Ben will be able to learn from how other places and organisations are responding to the challenges facing the cultural sector, have his own thinking challenged and tested, and build relationships that can create new opportunities for Lincoln Arts Centre and the wider region.

That exchange works both ways. Ben will bring the experience of working in Lincolnshire into a national conversation, sharing the opportunities and challenges of developing culture and creative practice outside the UK’s largest cultural centres.

For Lincoln Arts Centre, this is an opportunity to step back from the day-to-day, think differently about the Centre’s future and bring new ideas, perspectives and connections back into the organisation. For Lincolnshire, it is a chance to increase the visibility of the region’s cultural ambition and ensure that the knowledge and experience being developed here is part of a much wider national conversation.

The Fellowship is therefore as much about what Ben can bring back to Lincolnshire as what he gains from taking part.

The Fellowship is delivered in partnership with organisations that shaped Imogen Kinchin’s career, including Theatre Royal Plymouth, the National Theatre, Half Moon Young People’s Theatre, Playful Productions, Lyric Hammersmith Theatre and New Adventures.

The eight mentors are Emma Brünjes, Jo Danvers, Georgia Gatti, Glenn Graham, James Grieve, Nia Janis, Nicholai La Barrie and James Mackenzie-Blackman, bringing experience across theatre, dance, commercial producing, subsidised arts organisations and independent practice.

The inaugural Fellows reflect the breadth of talent within the cultural sector, while sharing the qualities at the heart of the Fellowship: generosity, curiosity, ambition and a desire to make a difference.