Women, Theatre, Justice:

Hosted by Anne-marie Greene (University of Leicester School of Business) and Deborah Dean (Warwick Business School).

This online seminar was aimed at practitioners and researchers interested in understanding more how Clean Break works as an organisation, run by women for women, with distinctive organisational practices characterised by learning through listening to the voices of those involved in its work and the implications of these practices for management and leadership more widely.

Speakers Erin Gavaghan, Executive Director, Clean Break and Professor Gill Kirton, Queen Mary, University of London

Erin Gavaghan reflected on the advantages and challenges of how shared leadership has manifest at Clean Break over the past two years. Gill Kirton responded drawing on her academic expertise and practitioner experience in the field of women-only organising.

There was space for small group discussion and Q&A.

Our Speakers

Erin Gavaghan is the Executive Director and joint CEO of Clean Break, a women's theatre company changing lives and changing minds: on stage, in prison and in the community. She is an experienced executive arts manager working across both new writing theatre and contemporary dance and choreography having previously worked with Siobhan Davies Dance, Soho Theatre and at the Royal Albert Hall. She relocated to the UK in 2000 from British Columbia, Canada. She studied English Literature and Theatre (Directing) at the University of Victoria (Canada) and attained an MA in Arts Policy and Management from Birkbeck in 2005.

Gill Kirton is Professor of Employment Relations in the Centre for Research in Equality and Diversity, School of Business and Management at Queen Mary University of London, UK. Gill has carried out many research projects in the area of gender and equality in unions with a particular interest in gender democracy, women’s organizing and women’s groups. She has also supervised several PhD projects exploring women’s leadership, feminist/women’s networking and workplace gender equality. Prior to her academic year, Gill worked for around 10 years in non-profit women’s organisations campaigning, researching and writing on women’s issues in the workplace, and working in partnership with trade union women’s groups to deliver activist training.