Our Team

Iain is a cultural and creative industries consultant with 30 years’ experience in private and public sectors. His work emphasises the leading role of culture, creative industries and digital innovation in the renewal and growth of places, spaces and economies across the world. 

He has delivered over 100 projects for clients including DCMS, WIPO, Innovate UK, Arts & Humanities Research Council, BFI, Digital Catapult, Ukie, Greater London Authority, Liverpool City Region Combined Authority, West Midlands Combined Authority, Liverpool City Council, London Legacy Development Corporation, University of the Arts London, University of Edinburgh and University of Salford.

He wrote the regional strategy for Digital & Creative Industries for North West England, to support the £1 billion development of MediaCityUK in Salford. From 2012-14 he was project manager for DCMS’s £150m Superconnected Cities programme. 

He was a talent agent at William Morris Agency and ICM before going on to found a digital design agency, a digital media incubator, and Creative Lancashire, an economic development agency for the cultural and creative industries.

Iain is a member of the Advisory Board to the School of Humanities at Royal Holloway, University of London, and a member of the Creative Industries Council’s Regions & Clusters Working Group. He was a member of the University of Salford Advisory Board from 2008-11, and has been a Fellow of the Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (RSA) since June 2012.

Sara specialises in cultural, travel and tourism marketing, with over 20 years’ experience in marketing strategy, planning and delivery. She combines high level analytical, communication and organisational skills to create a multi-channel mix of communications that generates high returns on investment.

Sara was Digital Marketing Manager for Liverpool Capital of Culture 2008, and subsequently developed the ‘Visit Liverpool’ website and destination management strategy for the Liverpool City Region.

She has worked on cultural and visitor economy strategy for Liverpool. Other assignments include digital marketing for National Museums Liverpool, Digital Marketing Manager for Transport for Wales and leading on identification of brand elements and hierarchy as part of the development of a place narrative for Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park. 

She has held senior strategic marketing positions in travel and retail organisations including Merseytravel, c2c Rail, Transport for Wales and Epsilon. 

Sara is a chartered marketeer (postgraduate Diploma Level 6 from Chartered Institute of Marketing) and has a bachelor’s degree in Fine Art from the University of Derby.

Simon Sprince, Tony Hughes and Andy Goodwin of City Curator use a mixture of data sources, notably LinkedIn, to produce an up-to-the-minute mapping of cultural, creative, and digital industries sectors, employers, and workforce which offers both greater accuracy and analysis than can be derived from published statistics.

The Fifth Sector and City Curator have worked together since 2017 to devise and continuously improve those methodologies, working with clients including Innovate UK, Digital Catapult, the Combined Authorities for Liverpool City Region, Tees Valley and West Midlands, Lancaster and South Cumbria Economic Region, Lancashire LEP, local authorities including North East Lincolnshire and Rushmoor and universities including Plymouth and Manchester Met.

Lynne is a former BBC journalist and producer who now runs her own advisory consultancy, Morra Ltd, which develops and delivers strategic projects. Lynne has a wealth of business and management knowledge:

• Training and skills development

• Management of high-level projects including international assignments

• Originator of strategies and concepts and turning them into real action

• Building collaborations between private and public partners

• Strong leader with vast experience of managing large teamsShe has more than 25 years of experience across a wide range of media, digital and creative environments.

Lara is a Cultural Consultant who specialises in diversity, innovation, leadership, collaboration, and cultural policy implementation within HE, cultural and digital sectors. She co-created the Hello Culture event series (how cultural and digital technology intersects), and has developed, managed, and delivered successful ERDF, ESF, ACE, AHRC bids, and programmes working within the public sector, HE and he commercial sector.

Lara is on the board of Derby Theatre, Vivid Projects and Coventry Biennial and the Advisory Group for SHOUT Festival,. She is on the UK Council for Creative UK and the Equality Monitoring Group for Arts Council Wales.

Lara is a member of The Fifth Sector team working on a number of projects with a focus on inclusion and digital including the Tees Valley Combined Authority Cultural and Visitor Economy Frameworks , Rushmoor Cultural Strategy and Compact and the Derby Cultural Compact. Other Fifth Sector assignments include devising governance arrangements for a new, more diverse, and inclusive Cultural Consortium for Manchester

Follow Lara on twitter, @lararatnaraja

DescriptionSteve has a 20+ year programme delivery career coupled with over ten years of intimate experience in digital development in Edinburgh as well as further afield in London, Bristol, Orkney and the Highlands. He has a deep understanding of both fund management for DCMS and programme delivery in receipt of funds from them having led the innovative projects of the £10M Edinburgh Super-Connected Cities programme 2012 – 14 working with all city stakeholders, including Festivals Edinburgh and key city venues. Subsequently, he has worked as Commercial Director DCMS with oversight of major projects and formulated and delivered the Scottish Government’s Public wireless programme (PWP). The PWP brought significant digital benefits to Edinburgh and wider Scotland. It included digital projects involving national partners including Creative Scotland, Visit Scotland and Event Scotland. It also included work with Edinburgh and the South East Scotland City Region teams including Borders, where Steve had previously led the South of Scotland’s Economic Competitiveness Strategy with its focus on the use of European and UK funding in the development of key cultural and natural resources.

Additionally, Steve is a professionally trained project evaluator and extensively experienced PPM, Green and Magenta Book practitioner. He holds a Masters in Public Policy from Kings College London. goes here