Our Team
We have a staff team of 24 based at Krowji, Redruth and working across the region.
Our senior team of five brings a broad range of skills and experience to our programme.
Gregg Whelan
Chief Executive Designate
Joining Creative Kernow in Jan 2026, Gregg brings a unique combination of grassroots knowledge and global perspective, he has led large-scale cultural projects across Europe and America including a transformative 14-year tenure as Co-Artistic Director of Finland’s renowned ANTI – Contemporary Art Festival, and presented performance works at world-renowned institutions.
Elisa Harris
Director, Krowji
Elisa joined Creative Kernow in 2006 and has been serving the creative community and leading major capital development projects at Krowji, Cornwall’s largest creative hub providing 150 studios and offices across five buildings.
Bethany Lyne
Director of Creative Enteprise
Joining Cornwall 365 in 2019, Bethany was appointed the Director of the programme in 2021. In her current role, Bethany oversees Cornwall 365 platforms, Creative Kernow Associates and our overall trading activities.
Sophie Norvill
Interim Chief Executive of Operations and Facilities (Job Share) and Finance Director
Appointed in 2025, Sophie leads the finance team and provides crucial financial management servies and support to all Creative Kernow programmes and subsidiaries.
Rachael Woodhead
Interim Chief Executive of Programme and People (Job Share) and Director of Creative Communities
Rachael joined in 2024 to oversee our hugely successful Creative Communities programme, including FEAST (community arts grants), Carn to Cove (rural touring), C-Fylm (community film clubs) and Arts Lab (wellbeing for young people, in partnership with HeadStart Kernow & Arts Well).
Governance
Creative Kernow is a charity and company limited by guarantee with a board of eleven trustees who support the organisation in a voluntary capacity.
The charity group currently includes two trading subsidiary companies which are wholly owned by the charity and which have independent but linked boards of non-executive directors.
Paul Brookes
Chair
Paul Brookes is an arts management consultant, living in Cornwall since 2012.
Paul has had a long career working for arts, heritage, media and place marketing initiatives, in a number of high-profile senior management posts. Paul was previously the CEO of The Box in Plymouth, where he championed the transformation of a number of historic buildings and organisations into a new museum, contemporary art gallery and archive, which opened to great reviews in September 2020. He was the Chief Executive of Photo 98 which was responsible for delivering the 1998 UK Year of Photography and Digital Imaging, and led Bradford’s bid to be designated the 2008 European Capital of Culture. He has worked closely with artists and communities on a number of projects, such as the 2012 Cultural Olympiad, as Executive Producer for the Milton Keynes International Festival in 2014 and for The Grand Tour, delivering three major exhibitions across various venues in Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire in 2015, 2016 and 2017.
Paul has been a trustee for a number of organisations including The Culture Company and the Yorkshire Film Archive and is currently also Chair of Plymouth Arts Cinema.
Tammy Bedford
Vice-Chair
Tammy is an independent Arts Producer and works on a range of projects and commissions with community engagement at their heart.
Now based in Cornwall, Tammy has had a varied career as an arts development specialist. She spent many years as a senior local authority arts manager, and for the past 10 years has worked on a freelance basis on major visual arts and music projects around the UK. Tammy is currently working on the Isles of Scilly Creative Islands initiative and is involved in a major project to develop a new Museum and cultural centre for Scilly. She has had a long association with the WOMAD UK festival and runs their World of Art initiative, commissioning visual and sound artists as part of the festival programme. She is also a grants advisor for the PRS for Music Foundation. She is vice-chair on the Creative Kernow board.
Claudia Avila de Oldroyd
Claudia is an Indigenous Colombian writer and storyteller with over a decade’s experience in the arts, travel, and lifestyle industries.
Additionally, she is a diligent a Creative Director and Producer, specialising in creating and delivering interesting and captivating shows and brand campaigns globally. As a journalist and commissioning editor, she has contributed to several UK and Latin American publications. Her writing career evolved after spending 15 incredible years in the music industry, touring the world as an artist & label manager, and event producer.
Throughout 2023 Claudia mentored and taught creative writing to young Afghani women as a volunteer with a UK charity, curating their poems and short stories with the ambition to publish and share their voices with the world. Closer to home, she has recently raised over £2,300 for the Cornwall Wildlife Trust and Ocean Generation Foundation by producing a music and arts fundraising event in collaboration with over 40 local artists and musicians which she hopes to repeat annually.
In 2021 Claudia co-founded a topicals range which has placed her firmly at the heart of the wellness space. This experience inspired her to create and co-produce a Podcast series, ‘Womb with a View,’ which centres on all things womanhood, sisterhood, motherhood, neighbourhood and everything in between, and which will launch in 2025.
Sovay Berriman
Sovay Berriman is an artist, plumber, and activist.
Sovay is an artist who is excited by the possibility of the collective and the potential of the fragment, and attentive to supple and subtle boundaries, and edges and moments of change. Sovay’s work will often manifest as multiple elements which may be experienced through installation, text/audio, moving image, drawing, sculpture, event or conversation; always pieces working together to create a whole supportive structure and shared story.
The natural environment, its domestic and industrial evolution, tourist sites, performance platforms and dance floors, inform abstract and semi-fantastical sculptural structures and events Sovay builds. Also working in the plumbing and heating industry, Sovay connects this experience with those of being Cornish, Neurodivergent, trauma-impacted and from a non-conforming low socio-economic background.
Sovay has always been committed to championing artist-led and grass-roots activity, having spoken at and represented artists at a number of forums including at the RADMIN conference convened by Kate Rich (2018), as a keynote at the DACS/ArtQuest SpacedOut conference (2018), as Vice Chair for Turning Point South West (now Visual Art South West) 2010-2012 and at ALIAS (the Artist Led Initiative Advisory Service) consultant becoming director 2009-2017.
Sovay works across Kernow and internationally, with organisations such as Institute of Cornish Studies, Kresen Kernow, National Theatre Scotland, Counterpoints Arts, Hospital Rooms, Visual Art South West, Tate, and Spike Island. Sovay was the Clore Leadership Visual Arts Fellow 2023/24, through which they developed their ReWilding Arts Leadership concept.
Mandy Berry
Mandy is an independent creative and cultural industries advisor working with companies, organisations and individuals on areas including strategy, leadership, change, partnerships and public and private finance.
Mandy’s early career was in East London, ranging from drama workshops and street theatre to running community-based projects across multiple arts forms. She co-founded a major charity supporting economic growth, diversity and inclusion, helping marginalised young people gain opportunities in London’s creative and digital industries. She has worked closely with senior business leaders, public bodies and government at ministerial level and forged strong cross-sectoral partnerships. She developed a centre in London’s digital heart, Soho, a space for collaboration between the converging audio-visual and interactive digital media sectors and helped set up the London Games Fringe Festival. She was co-founder and CEO of a digital filmed media distribution service for which she raised both public and private equity finance.
Mandy lives in Cornwall. She leads the delivery of the Cultivator Creative and Cultural Leadership Programme for Cornwall. She is Chair of Miracle Theatre and a member of the Cornwall and Isles of Scilly Local Enterprise Partnership’s Creative Industries Task Force.
Ajay Chhabra
Ajay is co-founder of Nutkhut, an ideas-led, art-focused performance company, creating work that mixes performance, dance, film, participation and a distinctly British comedic sensibility and eccentricity.
Ajay Chhabra is an actor and producer. A proud son of a partition survivor and the great-grandson of an indentured labourer. Born and raised in London, his curiosity with life and death has unearthed hidden histories, by bringing people together, under single, universal experiences, resulting in the creation of festivals, digital artworks and theatrical moments. Ajay is the co-founder of award-winning outdoor arts company Nutkhut. He founded Europe’s largest South Asian outdoor festival, London Mela, the Best Live Event 2019 at the Asian Media Awards. Ajay is an ambassador of the Mayor of London’s Cultural Leadership Board, Civil Society Governor of the Commonwealth Foundation representing the Europe Region and Chair for the National Mela Partnership. In all of his roles, he encourages entrepreneurialism, innovation and talent, through access, inclusion and equality.
Hannah Irwin
Hannah Irwin is Strategic Projects Manager in The Arts Institute, University of Plymouth, and has experience in the arts, heritage and cultural sectors.
Hannah’s role involves building connections beyond the University. She is based in The Bridge, a team which drives Knowledge Exchange, Impact and Placemaking initiatives for the Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Business. Recent projects include Engaging Students in Knowledge Exchange (Office for Students and Research England) and iMayflower (DCMS Cultural Development Fund administered by Arts Council England).
With a background in project management, communications, marketing and events, this has included roles with Livewest, Larmer Tree Festival, and prior to the University at Bodmin & Wenford Railway a heritage tourism attraction.
Having moved to Bodmin, Cornwall to raise her family six years ago, Hannah was keen to engage with the community. She is Chair of community and heritage festival Bodmin Riding, and on the board of KBSK Performing Arts CIC, which provides transformational support to young people through access to dance.
Sam Jones
Sam is an independent creative producer, music consultant and educator based in Cornwall and working internationally.
He runs projects throughout Africa, central America the Middle East and Europe, working with inspirational people and with funders such as the Arts Council England, PRSF, Heritage Fund, British Council, Goethe Institute, Alliance Francaise, HIVOS to name a few. He is passionate about working on community-driven projects and working closely with local authorities and community leaders. And runs Music Halls Project who work with custodians of public building and help develop their infrastructure for hosting accessible and high production value performances.
As a music producer, Sam has worked with many household names and many emerging grassroots artists. His studio was in London for over eight years, and he is now building a residential recording space and creative retreat in Cornwall. Working with local partners to route artists into our leading creative rural communities, record their music and organise local and international collaborations
Sam also lectures at Falmouth University, School of Oriental and African Studies and the Institute for Contemporary Music Performance. His research interests include exploring the changing environment of centres of community and tracing the role of cultural relations organisations on project design.
James Sculthorp-Wright
James Sculthorp-Wright is a Chartered Financial Planner and Fellow of the Personal Finance Society. A lifelong volunteer, James has worked with a number of charities and not-for-profits.
James has spent almost a decade advising private individuals, businesses and charities with financial planning matters. On a personal basis he has regularly volunteered for St John Ambulance, the South Western Ambulance Service, and Rotary International. James now brings his financial knowledge and enthusiasm to the Creative Kernow board.
James is a keen amateur potter and studio ceramics collector, with a passion for theatre and the wider arts. Proud to have lived in Cornwall for most of his life, James has a passion for creating opportunities for those living in the county. As such he is delighted to help Creative Kernow support the development of the creative and cultural sector in Cornwall.
Paul Springer
Professor Paul Springer is a writer and educator on creativity in the digital age. He is Dean of Strategy at the University of the Arts London (Chelsea, Camberwell and Wimbledon) and author of Books including Pioneers of Digital (Kogan Page press). He is particularly keen on supporting Cornwall’s emerging artists and creative practitioners in making a living from their talent. He worked on initiatives including Young & Talented Cornwall and the Falmouth Book Festival.
Paul was President, Edcom (the education arm of the European Association of Communications Agencies) between 2019-22 and is a Board Member of the Council of Art & Design in Higher Education. Springer has written extensively on pioneering media practices and was lead consultant for the Middle East’s first specialist college of communications.
Lisa Telfer Brunton
Lisa is an operations consultant and coach working across the creative, cultural and social impact sectors.
She has held senior roles in arts organisations and digital media, including leading global operations for the electronic music platform Resident Advisor. Lisa’s work supports organisations to embed equity and ethical practice at every level, with a particular focus on cultural change, EDI (equity, diversity and inclusion), and sustainability.
Lisa’s career spans music, film, crowdfunding and creative consultancy. She has produced internationally recognised documentary series including Real Scenes and Between the Beats, and worked on live sessions and artist features in New York, Paris and Tokyo. Her event production credits include festivals and cultural experiences across the UK, Europe, North Africa and the US – from small boutique festivals such as Devon’s Kallida to Helsinki’s Flow Festival and Detroit’s Movement.
She has also designed and delivered corporate retreats around the world, creating immersive, one-of-a-kind experiences in settings as diverse as Moroccan kasbahs and French chateaux.
Our Funders
