Nick Giles

I am currently Director of Shoreditch Town Hall, which is a Grade II Victoria former civic hall that I am developing into a new venue for East London. I have been in this role since October 2011. Although a huge challenge, and not a typical choice for someone at my mid-career stage, I wanted to give it a go – a rare opportunity to make something from scratch.

The building is fully independent and in my role I am Chief Executive of the charitable trust company that runs and leases the building long term. Having reopened in 2004 after many years derelict and empty, the building had built a steady, but sporadic, commercial hires business. I was appointed into post to take it in a completely new direction, utilising my skills and experience running arts venues to establish the Hall as a destination space with an arts programme to rival some of the best in London.

My recent roles have included Executive Producer at the Donmar Warehouse, Director of the Corn Exchange & New Greenham Arts in West Berkshire, Deputy Director of Oxford Playhouse and Centre Director of Riverside Studios. Prior to this I trained and worked as a manager for M&S and for a time in agency sponsorship and marketing. In addition to this I have had a number of voluntary roles, including Chair of Hextable Dance, and a Trustee of Oxford Contemporary Music and HighTide Theatre Festival. I am also currently a member of the South East Regional Council of Arts Council, England.

The path I followed was partly luck, and partly pursuing every opportunity – including voluntary roles – to develop my skills and experience. I knew I wanted to work in the arts, I just didn’t know in what capacity – and at the time of graduating didn’t really have an understanding of what an executive director did in a venue or a theatre. Looking back it would have been really beneficial to do some more research and ask people in the know questions about what kind of jobs I could explore. The luck element was M&S. Although I only worked in retail part time to earn some money as a student, after graduating, during my M.Phil, I enjoyed and got interested in some aspects of general management and running operations. Even though I knew I didn’t want to be a retail manager I took every opportunity I could to learn and gain experience in the sector – thinking that as time moved on the skills could at least be transferable. And they were. After working in a sponsorship agency for a short time I got the job at Riverside, which was at the time a Centre Manager focused around service and running the building and facilities – something M&S had given me good prep for.

As a mixed art form venue that also included TV I had a great experience working across a range of work, and again took every opportunity to learn and build skills in different areas of arts management.