Jude Kelly

Fee Band


Alongside her role in the London Olympics, Jude was the Artistic Director of the South Bank Centre. She made her reputation attracting huge new audiences to the West Yorkshire Playhouse, then launched regional arts labs to encourage and develop creative ‘hunches’ without feeling the pressure to create product within a fixed timescale. She is the Founder of the Women of the World Festival (WOW), an annual arts and science festival which celebrates the achievements of women and girls.


Biography

Jude Kelly is CEO and Founder of The Women of the World (WOW) Foundation. She founded WOW to celebrate the achievements of women and girls and confront global gender injustice. Starting as a three-day festival at London’s Southbank Centre where Jude was Artistic Director for twelve years, the festival now takes place in thirty locations across six continents.

Jude has directed over twelve theatre and opera productions, is the recipient of two Olivier Awards, a BASCA Gold Badge Award for contribution to music, a Southbank Award for opera, an RPO award for her festival The Rest is Noise, Women’s Hour’s one of the 100 most powerful women in the UK, Red Magazine’s Creative Woman of the Year, CBIs First Woman Award for Tourism and Leisure and in the inaugural Veuve Clicquot Woman of the Year Social Purpose Award. She was also headhunted to join the bidding team for the 2012 London Olympics and create the programme for culture and ceremonies, she subsequently advised both Rio and Tokyo on their successful bids.

Jude has founded a range of arts institutions and has commissioned and supported the work of thousands of female artists across all genres.

Her TED Talk on ‘Why women should tell the stories of humanity’ has had over one million views. Jude has given keynote talks at UNESCO, COP 22, and CHOGM.

She was awarded an OBE for her services to theatre and was made a CBE for services to the Arts.

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JLA Presents


Event - 30/04/2024 - 9:00 am

Speakers Breakfast

Understanding AI Now

Speakers
Priya Lakhani, Anne-Marie Imafidon, and Neil Lawrence

Please join us in our JLab studio near Oxford Circus at 08:30am on Tuesday 30th April for our next speaker’s breakfast event. Following our sell-out event for IWD back in February, we will be joined by three fantastic speakers for an exploration of the uses, myths and concerns surrounding AI.

Location

JLA, 14 Berners Street, London

WATCH

Event - 06/02/2024 - 9:00 am

Speakers Breakfast

Looking Ahead to International Women’s Day

Speakers
Samira Ahmed, Eniola Aluko, Julia Gillard, and Alex Mahon

We were joined by four fantastic speakers to look ahead at International Women’s Day. With the theme of this year’s event being #InspireInclusion, we were lucky enough to hear from four women who have each blazed a trail in their respective fields: CEO of Channel 4, Alex Mahon; the former Australian Prime Minister and Chair of Kings’ Global Institute of Women’s Leadership, Julia Gillard; one of the leading voices in football, Eniola Aluko MBE; and broadcaster and journalist, Samira Ahmed.

Location

Bishopsgate Institute, London

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