Mary-Helen Young

Mary-Helen is a Senior Consultant at PRD with over 20 years of direct cultural sector experience. She has worked across multiple city centre and cultural asset strategies, advising on how places can become more vibrant and inclusive through cultural and public realm activation. She is experienced in programme innovation for greater impact and sustainability, as well as bid writing and strategic partnership development. Her work draws on nuanced stakeholder engagement to identify market gaps and assess opportunities.

She has a background in performing arts and cultural management and operations where her work focused on how culture can deliver on wider objectives, build communities and become more sustainable. She has worked at international level managing a multi-national artist development scheme, at UK level as an EU cultural funding advisor, as well as at a community level building connections to local audiences. Recent cultural projects include a Cultural Infrastructure Prospectus for Ebbsfleet Garden City and a Cultural Asset Strategy for Slough. She has a developed specialism in night time strategy, including a Night Time Strategy for Greenwich Town Centre and authoring the successful GLA bid for the Woolwich Night Time Enterprise Zone.

Mary-Helen holds an MA in Cultural Policy and Management from City University of London and a Bachelor of Music in piano performance from Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee.