Jude Kelly

Jude Kelly is a former Artistic Director of the Southbank Centre, Britain's largest cultural institute.

She was on the London 2012 Cultural Olympiad Board, which oversaw a programme of over 500 cultural events to celebrate the Olympic year. She founded Battersea Arts Centre and Solent People’s Theatre, and was founding director of the West Yorkshire Playhouse.

In 1997, she was awarded an OBE for services to theatre. She has directed more than 200 theatre and opera productions and has won two Olivier awards. She was described as one of the 100 most powerful women in the UK by Women's Hour and in 2015 she was made a CBE for services to the Arts.

She also founded and is the CEO of the WOW Foundation. WOW celebrates the achievements of women and girls and confronts global gender injustice. WOW Festivals and events have taken place in more than 30 locations on six continents.

Jude is the recipient of a BASCA Gold Badge Award for contribution to music, a Southbank Award for opera, an RPO award for her festival The Rest is Noise, Red Magazine’s 2014 Creative Woman of the Year, CBIs 2016 First Woman Award for Tourism and Leisure and in 2017 the inaugural Veuve Clicquot Woman of the Year Social Purpose Award.