After six years as a Board member at Culture & Business Scotland, I am stepping away at an exciting time as the organisation prepares to mark 40 years of collaboration between culture and business in Scotland.
I feel well qualified to reflect on the past achievements of the organisation, created from the Association for Business Sponsorship of the Arts (ABSA), as my career in corporate communications going back to the 1990s has frequently involved me in contributing to, and participating in, its programmes and activities as they have evolved over the years. (See below for some personal highlights!)
The last few years have been especially tough for the organisation. I joined the Board at the start of Covid, the impact of which hit the arts sector particularly hard. I didn’t meet any of the management team or my fellow Board members in person until at least a year after joining, something I’m sure many of you out there may have experienced too! However, we quickly became familiar with each other in the surrealist world of video conferencing as we grappled with the fallout from the coronavirus pandemic.
Together, we have navigated an extremely challenging funding landscape. We oversaw a re- branding exercise to become Culture & Business Scotland. We carried out a strategic review, followed by an organisational restructure. Multi-Year Funding from Creative Scotland, confirmed in December 2025, will underpin our core programme and development work over the next three years. Looking forward, I feel the organisation is in very good shape. A new strategy is in development; new round table events have been introduced; and the website has just been refreshed.
At the time of writing, I’m fresh from an animated planning meeting for Culture & Business Scotland’s 40th celebration event in June. This was great fun as it involved rummaging through boxes of photos from the archive and recognising many faces from the business and arts worlds over the years.
Looking back, here are some personal highlights prompted by our planning session to bring to life my experience during the earlier years of the evolution of ABSA to become Culture & Business Scotland.
The ABSA Phase (1986–1999)
Focused on encouraging businesses to sponsor arts organisations, this period was characterised by the promotion of arts sponsorship as a brand-building exercise for corporations and as a vital income stream for arts institutions.
In the early 1990s, as a novice press officer with Scottish Hydro-Electric (now SSE), one of my first assignments was to write an application for the annual ABSA Scotland awards. The task was to outline Hydro-Electric’s partnership with Scottish Ballet to enable a tour of the Highlands, taking performances to remote locations and local communities – and the company’s customers and employees! The objective highlighted was to ‘take the arts to the community, not the black tie to the arts’. The context was the privatisation of the electricity sector, building the recently created Hydro-Electric brand.
I was thrilled when HE’s entry was shortlisted, and I was invited to join senior colleagues at a fabulous awards event and dinner at the Kelvingrove Museum in Glasgow. I recall a glamorous champagne reception, fire-eaters on stilts, interludes of superb musical entertainment, and great waves of excitement as each award category was announced. I can’t recall if we won or not – but it was a wonderful night!
During my time with HE, I was delighted to go on to be involved in the development and promotion of several other partnerships with arts organisations, travelling about Scotland and attending many performances in rural locations myself. As an arts enthusiast – I secretly thought ‘is this really work?’
For example, HE’s programme with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra included hosting customers on an incredible musical train journey on a steam train from Inverness to Kyle of Lochalsh. SCO minstrels swayed precariously through the train carriages clutching their instruments, enthralling us as the stunning Highland scenery flashed by. Hilariously, a midge-infested stop-off at Achnasheen was swiftly curtailed. On arrival at Kyle of Lochalsh there was a picnic and full orchestra performance in a marquee (yes, it rained!). With Scottish Opera Go Round, HE supported a similar programme of mini performances of operas in unusual remote locations, including in village halls and local schools.
The ‘Arts & Business’ Phase (1999–2011)
Broadened its remit from purely monetary sponsorship to a wider range of ‘partnerships’. This phase was aimed at encouraging in-kind support, governance skills transfer (e.g. placing business professionals on arts Boards), and corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives.
My next career move was to drinks company United Distillers (now Diageo). I felt instantly at home as the geographical territory and communities in Scotland were the same, even though the products at UD (notably Scotch whisky) were arguably more exciting! The drinks industry in Scotland has traditionally had a long association with the arts, with many of the whisky pioneers amassing notable art collections. In my early days, while based at Distillers House, visitors were enthralled to see the iconic painting ‘The Monarch of the Glen’ by Landseer hanging majestically above reception! (It’s now on display at National Galleries Scotland: National on the Mound in Edinburgh.)
In addition to the more established patronage of the arts through sponsorship (for example, UD sponsored Scottish Ballet’s tour to Japan in the early 90s), the company actively encouraged employees to support arts organisations by offering them their business skills, while recognising the benefits to individual development.
I was fortunate to have the chance to participate in the Arts & Business Skills Bank and Board Bank programmes. Through Skills Bank, I advised Dundee Contemporary Arts Centre (DCA) on their annual marketing plan. My subsequent placement as a Board member of Dundee Rep Theatre in 2006 was as a direct result of Board Bank, and this was excellent grounding to prepare me for my first Board role. Topics covered included the importance of separating governance from operations, how to scrutinise financial accounts, and the importance of asking challenging questions to ensure good governance.
While at Dundee Rep, I saw for myself how incredibly tough it can be behind the scenes in an arts organisation, and how entrepreneurial the arts world needs to be! The show must go on!
Evolution Phase: Arts & Business Scotland becomes Culture & Business Scotland (2011– Present)
During the last 15 years, since it became an independent organisation in 2011, Arts & Business Scotland has expanded its remit beyond the arts to include the heritage and historic environment sectors. The focus has continued to shift from encouraging sponsorships to building collaborative, sustainable partnerships, generating mutual benefit and leading to economic and social impact.
In 2017, Arts & Business Scotland expanded its focus significantly to include the heritage sector. The Culture & Business Scotland Fund was launched, replacing former arts sponsorship and awards programmes, and broadening its scope to include the heritage sector. Supported by the Scottish Government, the Fund now makes investments to not-for- profit cultural organisations where they have a collaborative sponsorship with a for-profit business sponsor, delivering cultural activity for the benefit of public audiences in Scotland.
My first task on joining the Arts & Business Scotland Board in 2020 was to set up and chair a new marketing and communications committee. We recommended a re-branding of the organisation to reflect its expanded remit.
The shift to become Culture & Business Scotland in 2023 was designed to align with the challenging post-Covid, post-Brexit economic landscape, enabling the organisation to better highlight the value of cultural experiences to business sector organisations.
Under the leadership of the organisation’s current Chair, Jane Morrison-Ross, 2025 saw a reshaping of the organisation in response to significant changes in the funding landscape. The Board has recently been strengthened with several fantastic new appointments and David Nelson has been appointed as the new Executive Director to lead the team.
In December 2025, Culture & Business Scotland was delighted to join Creative Scotland’s Multi-Year Funding programme to support its work from 2026 to 2029. This investment is a foundation from which the organisation aims to facilitate new collaborative partnerships between Scotland’s culture organisations and the business sector, amongst many other areas of development.
The last 40 years have shown what is possible. To those now carrying this work forward, the task is both challenging and full of promise.
As I say farewell to the management team and my Board colleagues, I wish them every success. I’m really looking forward to celebrating 40 years of culture and business in Scotland with them and our guests in Edinburgh in June.
Jane Richardson
