Creating a world where caring manhood is the new normal

Jude Kelly CBE is one of the UK’s most powerful cultural leaders. She is an award-winning creative, a business leader and mentor, and a celebrated global champion of equality, with a particular focus on intersectional gender equity. In April 2025 Jude became Master of St Catherine’s College, Oxford.

She has received many awards and accolades, including being listed in the BBC’s Most Powerful Women in the Arts and 1000 most significant global women; Red Magazine Woman of the Year Award; Veuve Clicquot Female Social Entrepreneur (with a champagne vine named after her!); CBI First Woman Award Award; Evening Standard 1000 award; Tide Award. She is an inaugural member of the Connected Women Leaders group, an organization that convenes international cohorts of distinguished thinkers founded in 2017 by Pat Mitchell, Ronda Carnegie, and Hafsat Abiola. She sits on the Global Advisory Board of Pathfinders Presidents Council and the Advisory Board of the Global Institute for Women Leaders (led by Julia Gillard, Australia’s first female Prime Minister). Her TED Talk on ‘Why women should tell the stories of humanity’ has had over 1 million views.

She has given numerous keynote talks to Business, Governments and global leaders, including at UNESCO, COP 22, CHOGM 2022 and at the 2024 World Economic Forum in Davos. She is the recipient of 21 doctorates and fellowships for services to the arts and women in the UK, Australia, Hong Kong, China.

In 2018, she founded WOW – Women of the World as a force for change. WOW’s history began as a festival created at London’s Southbank Centre in 2010 where Jude was artistic director for 12 years. To date, WOW has worked with 33 partners across the globe to present more than 150 festivals and events in 71 places across six continents, with over 5.3 million people taking part.

Sabeena is an award-winning festival programmer, curator, writer, and cultural leader with over a decade of experience delivering pioneering events across the UK and internationally. As Head of Projects and Programmes at WOW, she develops and curates world-class festivals and participatory programmes, working with global partners to platform diverse voices and urgent ideas.

A co-founder of the award-winning Primadonna Festival and Prize, Sabeena is passionate about equity in the arts and championing working-class creativity, drawing deeply from her own background and lived experience. Alongside her programming work, she is the editor of Cut From the Same Cloth? and the author of Talking About Islamophobia. A mum of four, Sabeena balances creativity, care and community within her work.

Colette is CEO at WOW – Women of the World and a creative producer, with an established history and over 25 years experience of leading SME organisations and teams in the UK. Previously she was Artistic Director and CEO of Metal (2002-2021) and Managing Director at the Royal Society of British Sculptors (1998-2022). Her work has always been purpose-driven, creating arts programmes that are underpinned by social change, community participation and nurturing talent within people of all ages.

She is a passionate advocate for the transformational power of the arts to create change – for both people and places – and equally passionate that access to culture should be available to everyone. All her work to date has been to find ways to advocate for, develop and deliver this.