Meet our business advisors: Sabina Strachan

Over the past 6 years, Creative United has established a unique network of exceptionally qualified business advisors whose expertise span the full breadth and depth of the arts and creative industries.

Sabina Strachan is an independent change consultant with 18 years experience working in management consulting, research development and heritage management across multiple sectors in culture and the creative industries and in higher education.
Sabina founded glu in 2018 which develops and supports collaboration between individuals and organisations through consulting, training, facilitation, organisational development and bespoke resources. Sabina is skilled at helping people get to the root of issues and working in partnership to find innovative solutions.

Can you tell us a bit more about yourself and your area of expertise?
I want to help people achieve greater impacts through effective collaboration. My road to now has been pretty varied, via heritage management, research & management consulting and partnership development in heritage, culture and higher education. As a management consultant and trainer I help organisations with areas such as income generation, business modelling, visioning, partnership-working and how to measure outcomes.

What do you think are the main challenges currently faced by cultural heritage organisations?
It is often a juggling act balancing day-to-day operations with the development and pursuit of strategic goals, but the demands on diminishing resources have become more acute over recent years.
Given that context, business models need to adapt to enable varied portfolios that contributes toward long-term sustainability – I believe this is challenging but achievable.

How do you think your knowledge and experience can help the organisations on the programme?
My approach is practical and experience-led. I have made successful business cases for multi-million-pound cultural heritage projects, led organisational development reviews, coached people on collaborative working, and am working on my own web platform start-up.
Together through Prosper North we can work through priority issues organisations are facing in real time and build capacity to continue on this track in the future. I enjoy being a sounding board and an independent critical friend!

What skills would you like these organisations to develop through Prosper North?
Skills that could grow stronger or blossom include: confidence, assessing risk, risk-taking, effective decision-making, influencing, relationship-building, ideas generation, business modelling, market analysis, visioning, measuring impact, co-production, fundraising, communication… What skills are needed to grow or build on will be particular to each participant, but these are the kind of skills that help organisations become more sustainable.

how2glu.com

Find out more about Prosper North and apply for one of the next editions here.