Non-Executive Directorships
CHAIR OF THE UNIVERSITY OF SUSSEX
Simon Fanshawe is chair of the 25 member University Governing Council responsible for an organisation with an expenditure of £125m in a time of fundamental change in Higher Education.
A great Sixties University in the Sixties, the institution is successfully working to regain its position in the top 12 UK universities in the Noughties. The need for change at Sussex is considerable. Sussex is an institution whose purpose is to provide inspirational teaching and to take part, and in certain cases to lead, in identifying and developing through research solutions to the great global challenges in the twenty-first century. Simon Fanshawe’s contribution has been to be bold in strategic matters, pushing a process of constant re-evaluation of the shape of the University’s intellectual offer to its students, to and by it’s staff and to the outside world. Simon has steered the process of, and Council’s role in, creating the University’s strategy to 2015.
He recently lead the process of recruiting the new Vice-Chancellor. The search process was executed by Perrett Laver. And resulted in the successful appointment of Professor Michael Farthing.
THE ECONOMIC PARTNERSHIP (EP)
(Chairman 2001 - )
The EP is a body of 34 partners, representing the economic drivers of the local economy. With a budget of only £175k and three staff (of which he is one as the part-time exec chair) he has built an organisation with influence way beyond its financial means and staff capacity.
City narratives are crucial to the growth and prosperity of cities. Simon Fanshawe, with the Exec Director Tony Mernagh, has shaped this alliance of the key economic drivers in the city to stimulate the important debates about land use, skills, transport, business support, housing and tourism. He has placed considerable emphasis on creating networks of the city’s economic drivers, where there had been none before, in an attempt to convince them that the success of their businesses is aligned to the success of the city.
This work has taken Simon Fanshawe into the national and international arena in debates about cities and their centrality to growth and prosperity. He contributed to the thinking on the recent Government White Paper on Local Government
Abroad, after giving keynote speeches twice at the South African Property Industry’s annual conference, he met with Durban’s Chief Executive on affordable housing models and working with the British Council and the South African Department of Arts and Culture to establish civic creative industries networks in Johannesburg and Cape Town.
EDINBURGH FESTIVAL FRINGE SOCIETY LTD
Endless new challenges are raised by the potential of new technology. Simon Fanshawe would not have stayed so log if it a) hadn’t remained interesting or b) the Board and he hadn’t felt he had a usefulness in meeting those challenges. The Board runs a budget of over £1.5m.
Simon Fanshawe has been part of the Business Planning group of the Fringe for four years. We have worked to identify the key clients for the Fringe and a precise understanding of the nature and level of services we offer to each client. This has prepared the Fringe for an era of huge technological change in which it’s central strategy must be to maintain its position as the primary source of information about the Fringe for audiences, participants, the city and other stakeholders. He is working with the Director on the development of the new Box Office which promises to be the most complex box office in the world.
HE IS A NON-EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR/CHAIRMAN OF:
Brighton Festival and Dome Ltd