Lara Ratnajara

Lara is a freelance cultural consultant specialising in diversity, innovation, leadership, collaboration and cultural policy implementation within the HE, cultural and digital sector.

She develops and delivers projects and policy on how cultural and digital technology intersect for a number of national partners as well as programmes around leadership, resilience and business development for the arts and creative industries.

She co-produced RE:Present a new initiative delivered in partnership with Birmingham Hippodrome, funded by Birmingham City Council and Arts Council England, which supported the development of cultural leaders from diverse backgrounds so that the cultural ecology of the city better reflects its changing demographic.

She was also the Broker at the University of Birmingham on the AHRC Funded CATH Project (Collaborative Triple Helix) which developed 19 collaborative projects across the East and West Midlands with academics from the both Birmingham and Leicester Universities, cultural organisations and digital SMEs. She subsequently became Senior Research Facilitator leveraging investment for further knowledge transfer and research collaborations between academics, cultural organisations and artists across the sector.

She also worked on the Arts Council England project, Developing Cultural Sector Resilience.Lara has also developed, managed and delivered successful ERDF, ESF, ACE and other funded and non-funded programmes and projects cross sectors.Until 2011, she was the Sector Development Director for the Creative, Cultural and Digital Industries at Business Link West Midlands. She is on the Board of Stan’s Café.