Portfolio

David helps creative people to make their businesses and organisations even more successful. The following is intended to provide illustrations of the range of projects undertaken, and clients helped, in his work as an international business adviser and trainer.
Further information is available on request.
 
Advising Creative Businesses on Growth
 
David was the lead consultant responsible for advising growing creative businesses on Merseyside through the ‘Creative Advantage’ project. Merseyside ACME focused support on businesses that were growing and creating jobs. As well as delivering training workshops, David provided tailored and intensive consultancy advice for selected growth enterprises. High growth businesses in the creative industries have been helped by David during periods of change and growth.

Economic Regeneration and Job Creation

The creative, cultural and digital sector of the economy has the potential for economic growth and job creation. David works with economic development and regeneration agencies to create jobs in the creative and digital sector. He works with government agencies and NGOs to help high-growth creative and digital businesses to develop and create jobs. As a management consultant he has been commissioned to advise those creative businesses with the greatest potential for sustainable growth and job creation.

The 'Creative Growth Initiative' Project

David has worked with Liverpool Vision to help creative and digital businesses in the city to grow. As a specialist creative industries management consultant he has provided relevant and timely advice to creative enterprises in Liverpool. David was engaged as a business adviser through Merseyside ACME and played a major role in helping over 100 creative enterprises to grow.

The ‘Focusing Creativity’ Project
 
This project has helped hundreds of creative entrepreneurs in Derbyshire to develop their businesses even more successfully. David played a central role in designing and delivering training workshops on business development, marketing and business strategy. This creative industries training project was initiated by Derbyshire County Council.

 
Creative Business Workshops and Seminars
 
Training workshops devised and delivered by David include ‘Creative Advantage’, ‘Creative Focus’, ‘Creative Marketing’, ‘Creative Finance’, ‘Focusing Creativity’, 'Designing Your Creative Business' and a range of seminars, workshops and presentations on topics including Marketing, Pricing, Business Strategy and Development, Intellectual Property, Leadership, and Managing Change.
 
UNESCO Project
 
In partnership with UNESCO, David is leading a project entitled ‘Sharing Best Practices in the Creative Industries’. This involves researching creative businesses and cultural organisations internationally and will result in a publication.
 
Keynote Speaker, Seminars and Lectures
 
David was a guest speaker at the Shanghai Creative Industry Week and one of the speakers at the Creative Clusters conference in Belfast. He addressed the Taiwan International Cultural and Creative Industries Forum in Taipei. He was the keynote speaker at an event organised by the Enterprise Centre for the Creative Arts (ECCA) at the University of the Arts, London. David was the guest speaker at an Impulse Night event for creative entrepreneurs and students at CMKBU in Utrecht. In Colombia he gave a presentation at the University of Bogota and ran a workshop at SENA Tecnoparqe. He was a speaker at a creative industries conference in Sweden and at a cultural industries conference in Norway. He spoke about New Business Models in the Creative Industries in Valparaiso, Chile. As a creative industries speaker he draws on his international experience as a specialist adviser for creative enterprises and cultural organisations.
 
Leadership Training and Seminars
 
He was invited to make a presentation on the subject of ‘Leading Creative People’ at the conference of the Marketing and Advertising Global Network (MAGNET), held in Munich. He has also designed and delivered workshops on Leadership and Management for executives in the creative sector and other industries.
 
Writing and Publishing
 
Following the publication of his book ‘T-Shirts and Suits: A Guide to the Business of Creativity’ and its release as a free eBook, David continues to write and publish articles about the business of creativity in his blog, in a regular piece for Creative Times, and for other publications by arrangement. David's 'Creative, Cultural and Digital Industries Guide' was published by Business Link West Midlands in the UK.
 
Marketing workshops, seminars and lectures
 
As well as being a constant issue for the creative businesses David advises on a one-to-one basis, he has also spoken on marketing to creative design entrepreneurs for the 'Flying Start' project, to participants on the New Entrepreneurship Scholarship, for the Greenhouse project, and at the IKADA business centre in Oslo.
 
Leading and Managing Change
 
A two-day training workshop for senior manager on 'Leading and Managing Change' was originally designed in partnership with the Australian National University and delivered in Turkey. A similar workshop for creative and other businesses was run in Singapore and Thailand.
 
Clients
 
Clients are creative businesses, cultural organisations and the agencies which support them, including local authorities, government departments, specialist creative industries development organisations and other projects.