Management
Julian Knight
Creative Director
Julian is a social entrepreneur with 20+ years’ management experience in the arts sector, and particular expertise in devising and developing participatory projects which use creativity to enhance educational achievement, aspiration, and positive wellbeing. He strongly believes in the life-changing role that the arts can play in enriching the lives of all children and young people, especially those facing challenges or with least access. Through Creative Futures Julian is building a raft of partnerships and programmes which inspire children, young people and families, enabling creativity to flourish and bringing positive change to society.
Vanessa Stansall
Creative Producer
Vanessa is an experienced early childhood music teacher and researcher. Having started her career as a secondary school music teacher, she has subsequently worked as both a music and general teacher/practitioner in a number of primary schools and nurseries, as well as teaching early years piano and musicianship. She also worked in Spain where she led multi-arts projects with young children and as Education Assistant at the New London Orchestra, working on education and community projects. Currently studying for a PhD at the Royal College of Music (where she is an RCM Studentship Holder), Vanessa also holds an MA (Distinction) in Education (Early Childhood Music) from the Centre for Research in Early Childhood and a PGCE in Music from the Institute of Education. Vanessa’s research takes a matricentric feminist approach to the exploration of the meanings of music for new mothers. She is interested in creative and participatory research methods and for her PhD project is using walking methodologies, collage-making and playlist-making. Throughout her research and practice Vanessa aims to counter deficit perspectives of children and families in musical contexts. Vanessa enjoys collaborating with other practitioners, researchers and organisations. Through her role at Creative Futures which involves oversight of a number of large-scale early years programmes, she is currently also the Early Years Lead for Sound Connections and researcher with Groundswell Arts on the Youth Music-funded Energiser project. She is also a Trustee of MERYC England. If you’d like to work together on something, please get in touch!
Sabrina Scolaro
Creative Programmes Manager
Sabrina is a practicing artist with a varied career within creative industries. She began her career working at major record labels and travelled internationally with bands on extensive promotion tours. After 15 years in the commercial sector, she retrained as a teacher to share her passion for art and teach drawing, painting and ceramics to children and adults. She is a strong advocate for arts education and the important role it plays in enriching the creative industries. Sabrina holds a BA in Fine Art from University of the Arts London and an MA in Arts Policy and Management from Birkbeck, University of London. She often takes part in indie art fairs and has work in private collections. She is a Trustee of Kingsgate Project Space.
Ambassador
Konya Kanneh-Mason
Konya Kanneh-Mason held The Gilling Family Scholarship at The Royal Academy of Music, where she studied piano with Tessa Nicholson. She also plays violin. Konya has played solo recitals around the UK, and concerti including Mozart K414, Shostakovich Piano Concerto No 2, Schumann Piano Concerto and Mozart’s Triple Piano Concerto No 7 (K242) with two of her sisters. She played Mozart Piano Concerto No 23 with The Orchestra of the Restoration in 2022 and has performed in concert tours of Antigua and Barbuda, Australia, USA and Canada, Europe with her siblings. Konya has also appeared with her siblings at the 2018 BAFTAs and at the 2021 BBC Proms in the Royal Albert Hall in London performing Saint-Saens Carnival of the Animals and Revel by Daniel Kidane. She has appeared on numerous television and radio programmes, including the BAFTAs, Britain’s Got Talent, The One Show, the BBC4 documentary, Young, Gifted and Classical, the CBS documentary for Sunday Morning, USA, and the Imagine documentary for BBC1, This House is Full of Music. She has also performed on BBC Radio 3 In Tune, The Royal Variety Performance (ITV), and Strictly Come Dancing (BBC1). In 2023 she co-presented a radio programme for Classic FM, The Kanneh-Mason Family Takeover. Konya has recorded on the Decca Classics album, Carnival. Whilst she is still an active musician, she is also pursuing the career of an author and is currently writing children’s books. Konya is very grateful to Frank White of Ladystone Violins, the Nottingham Soroptimist Trust, the Nottingham Education Trust, to Mr and Mrs John Brydon, and to the Gilling family.
Board of Trustees
Marcus James
Chair of Trustees
Marc has spent over 15 years working in early years education, with a particular focus on quality, inclusion and creative learning. He's passionate about making sure every child gets access to high-quality creative experiences, especially in underserved communities. Marc is Head of Quality, Learning and Development at tiney, the fourth largest childcare provider in England, where he's shaped national quality strategy during a period of rapid growth. He's also worked with the Department for Education on early years policy, helping to influence frameworks that better support children's development. Marc has worked with the London Early Years Foundation, a charitable social enterprise running over 40 nurseries in diverse communities across London, where he supported quality improvement and nursery turnarounds. Before that, he founded the UK's first nursery group for the film and television industry, setting up facilities for Warner Brothers and Netflix, and designing programmes that put creative arts at the heart of early learning. He previously sat on the steering group for MITEY, a national campaign to bring more men into the early years workforce. Marc chairs Creative Futures because he believes the arts belong to everyone, and that creativity in childhood is essential for all children's development.
Paul Hayday
Trustee
Paul is a violin expert. After 15 years working as a Director and specialist at Sotheby’s Musical Instruments, Paul and Tim Ingles set up Ingles & Hayday in 2012. Paul continues to act as a consultant to Sotheby’s for matters concerning musical instruments.
Aleksandra Trojacanek
Trustee
Biography coming soon
Matthew Brookes
Treasurer
Matt is a qualified Chartered Accountant and has had an extensive finance career at various well known companies including PricewaterhouseCoopers, Disney, the BBC and Hasbro. He has previously been pro bono CFO, Treasurer, Trustee and advisor to other charities and is passionate about the positive impact the creative arts can have on children, including his own son.
Alistair Pike
Trustee
Ali is an experienced research & insight specialist with 10+ years working across the creative industries. Ali is currently an Audience Research Manager at the BBC working across Music and Radio, while previously he was at Sony Pictures Entertainment leading market and audience insight across international TV and Film distribution. Through Creative Futures Julian is building a raft of partnerships and programmes which inspire children, young people and families, enabling creativity to flourish and bringing positive change to society.
Marcia Bennie
Trustee
Marcia has worked with arts and educational organisations all her professional life. She spent 19 years with the Orange Tree Theatre In Richmond as part of the small team who raised the funds to build the new theatre from its origins in a room over a pub, and from there went on to help Reed’s School in Cobham raise funds to build a music centre in the school’s campus. Since 2005 she has acted as a fundraising consultant, and her freelance career has included working extensively with The Voices Foundation and VocalEyes, as well as other clients such as the Actors Centre, the EUYO, ABCD, Ocean Maths, Theatre Peckham and more recently with Working Chance and Action on Disability.
Baden Prince
Trustee
Baden Prince (Jnr) has established a considerable reputation as a storyteller over the last 7 or so years, largely due to a series of appearances at the East Anglian Storytelling Festival. His repertoire incorporates traditional Caribbean tales, as well as original, self-penned material. In October 2018 he featured as guest storyteller at the Three Golden Apples Festival in Taunton, hosted by Taffy Thomas MBE. Since 2019 Baden has made several guest appearances at Bromyard, Cambridge, Chippenham and New Forest Folk Festivals and Glastonbury, among others. In February 2022 Baden was invited to be a guest teller at the inaugural Morocco International Storytelling Festival in Marrakesh. He has since returned to Marrakesh twice and took part in the marathon storytelling session in 2025 which set a verified Guinness World Record. For the first two years of its existence, Baden was Assistant Curator of the pioneering World Storytelling Café project, working alongside the legendary John Row. Most recently he has appeared at Strumpshaw Tree Fiair (June 2025) and Yarn Storytelling Festival in Bray, Co. Wicklow, Ireland (November 2025).