Conference 2023 - Guest Speakers
Stuart Murphy
Stuart Murphy was ENO’s Chief Executive Officer from 2018-2023.
Stuart grew up in Leeds, where his passion for classical music was sparked by playing the clarinet in Leeds Youth Orchestra and Leeds Youth Opera. He began his career at BBC Manchester, worked in Africa on the BBC’s Great Railway Journeys with Professor Henry Louis Gates Junior, and became the country’s youngest TV Channel Controller at the age of 26, running comedy and music channel UK Play. Stuart subsequently became Channel Controller of BBC Choice, then devised, launched and ran BBC Three in 2003.
While at BBC Three he commissioned shows from Gavin and Stacey to Bodies and developed a reputation for developing new talent as well as for commissioning innovative, award-winning programming. Particularly notable was Flashmob The Opera, a live opera from Paddington Station in October 2004, which brought together opera choruses from across the country with the BBC Concert Orchestra and was watched live by almost 100,000 viewers. This was followed in April 2005 with Flashmob The Opera: Meadowhall, a specially adapted version of the Faust legend, again bringing opera to new audiences in an unexpected setting. BBC Three went on to win both Channel of the Year and Best Entertainment Channel.
After two years as Creative Director at Two Four Productions, Stuart joined Sky in 2009 to run family channel Sky One. At Sky One Stuart brought to the screen numerous award-winning shows from Stan Lee’s Lucky Man to Mad Dogs, from An Idiot Abroad to Stella and from Modern Family to Flash. After two years of Stuart’s leadership, Sky 1 was named Channel of the Year for the first time in its 20-year history.
In 2011 Stuart devised, launched and ran Sky Atlantic, bringing, among others, Game of Thrones, Mad Men, Boardwalk Empire, The Affair, Big Little Lies and Fortitude to UK screens. Under his tenure, he attracted many individuals to work with Sky for the first time, including Sir David Attenborough, Joanna Lumley, Dawn French, Idris Elba, Meera Syal, Matthew Perry, Kim Cattrall, Jon Hamm, Davina McCall, Melvyn Bragg, John Ridley and Sally Wainwright and numerous others. Stuart has sat on the board for A&E Networks International and Jaunt Virtual Reality Company.
Katie Neeves - Trans ambassador
Katie tells the story of how, after battling with gender dysphoria for 48 years, she finally admitted to herself that she is a transgender woman and that she needed to change her body, risking her livelihood and reputation as a top UK photographer in the process. She tells her inspirational and moving story with heart, humanity and stacks of humour.
Katie is a woman on a mission - but not just any woman and not just any mission! Katie formed Cool2BTrans to support and inspire other trans people and also to educate everyone else about trans people. She helps organisations with diversity and inclusion by providing inspirational talks and trans awareness training in an entertaining way by using her infectious sense of humour.
Recent participants of Katie's sessions described them as "An excellent session which was funny, moving and educational.", "Inspirational storytelling at its best" and "I personally have never laughed and learnt so much in one hour!”.
Katie appears regularly in the media and she is on both ITV's and the BBC's lists of experts, as well as being a BBC Sounds podcast presenter. She was recently awarded the British Diversity Awards "Hero of the Year Award 2023", the Trans in the City "Trans Community Champion Award 2022", the This is Us "Training & Development Award 2023" and Fellowship of the Royal Society of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce for her work as a trans ambassador. She was also a DIVA Awards "Unsung Hero of the Year 2023" award finalist and she was listed on the DIVA Power List 2023.