The Hour: Spotlight with Keith Jeffrey - a highly experienced cultural leader, social entrepreneur, and executive coach
Are you an aspiring arts or cultural leader?
Are you a working‑class creative navigating a system that wasn’t built for you?
Do you want to understand how power really works, and how to move through it?
This session will explore and examine the underlying systems, power dynamics and decision-making structures that shape careers. Especially regarding how working-class creatives can navigate the sector.
We'll (Curious Minds) be joined by Keith Jeffrey, who will draw on his own journey as a working-class professional. Keith has built and led organisations across the cultural and social enterprise sectors. He'll share practical insights into how the system functions, how it is navigated, and how individuals can position themselves more effectively within it.
This will be framed through the lens of his book Purpose & Passion: The Working Class Guide to Fulfilling Your Professional Potential, which explores how people from working-class backgrounds can understand and operate within professional environments that were not designed with them in mind.
What to expect:
- To demystify how decisions are actually made in the cultural sector
- To help working-class professionals recognise both visible and invisible barriers
- To provide a clearer understanding of leadership behaviours and institutional drivers
- To equip participants with strategies to navigate systems without losing their identity or purpose
- To create space for reflection, shared experience and practical learning
- Q+A with Keith
About the Speaker
Keith Jeffrey is a highly experienced cultural leader, social entrepreneur, and executive coach with over 40 years’ experience shaping the UK’s arts and social enterprise landscape. He has held multiple Chief Executive and Managing Director roles, including CEO of QUAD Derby and Managing Director of Coventry University Social Enterprise CIC, alongside senior leadership positions at major cultural institutions such as BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art and the National Glass Centre.
As a founding CEO of two major arts charities and a leader responsible for organisations with multi-million-pound turnover and large teams, Keith has a proven track record of building institutions, leading change, and securing significant investment for culture and creativity. Over his career, he has helped generate over £100m in public funding and supported the creation of more than 500 businesses.
Keith now leads Social Ventures Partnership CIC and Derby Social Ventures, focusing on developing inclusive, place-based ecosystems for impact entrepreneurship. His work centres on supporting people—particularly those from working-class backgrounds—to build sustainable careers and ventures in the arts and beyond.
He is the co-author of Passion and Purpose: The Working Class Guide to Fulfilling Your Professional Potential, and brings a direct, lived perspective to conversations about class, culture, and leadership.