The Place Appoints Alan Bishop As New Chair Of The Board Of Governors

At The Place, the UK's leading organisation for dance training, creation and performance, we have a clear ambition for the future and set about searching for a new Chair to the Board of Governors who could help us realise this vision. Today, we are pleased to announce the appointment of Alan Bishop who will assume the post in August 2019. Alan will take over from our current chair Thomas Lynch, who has been with the organisation since 2013.

This year, The Place is celebrating its 50th anniversary. Alan joins us at an exciting moment in time as we move into our 6th decade of powering imagination through dance. Alan will work in close partnership with the Vice-Chair Jane Alexander and Chief Executive Clare Connor to lead The Place into the future.

Clare Connor, Chief Executive of The Place, says about the appointment,

Alan Bishop comes with a wealth of valuable expertise and experience. He implicitly understands the intersection of public accountability combined with commercial success and how to secure investment and space for artistic innovation. Alan's humility, sense of fun and profound care for the role of the arts in society is hugely welcome and I am deeply excited to combine our vision, passion, creativity and strategic thinking to shape the future of this ever ambitious and adventurous organisation.

With his impressive portfolio of leadership across many different sectors - business, government and the arts - Alan Bishop will enrich The Place with his creative strategic solutions. His decade-long career in advertising at Saatchi & Saatchi fostered creativity within a commercially aggressive environment. During his time as Chief Executive of the Central Office of Information, Alan Bishop navigated the political terrain interacting with myriad government departments and agencies.

More recently, he helped achieved a widely acclaimed revitalisation of the Southbank Centre, where as Chief Executive he showed how entrepreneurialism and artistic excellence can support each other. Currently, Alan is Chief Executive of the Creative Industries Federation, which supports and champions the full span of the UK's £100 billion creative industries.

Alan Bishop says,

The Place has built its reputation on driving innovation in contemporary dance and I am delighted to be taking up the role of Chair. As the organisation moves into its 6th decade, I look forward to working with the brilliant Clare Connor and her superb executive team to maximise the organisations' artistic and education success and impact through the development of new partnerships locally, nationally and internationally.

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