Kerry Bishop is a highly respected business leader with two decades of proven experience across the arts and creative industries.

Kerry has led or managed major artistic organisations with large teams and significant budgets – working at the intersection of art, architecture and design, and frequently delivering multiple complex projects at once across both physical and digital worlds.

Kerry has expertise and experience in every aspect of an organisation’s operations: shaping new strategies, leading large teams, facing down crises, and bringing major projects from drawing board to reality. From rapid start-ups to established enterprises, local consolidation to international expansion, Kerry knows how organisations must function if they’re to meet their mission – and she knows how to help them change.

People are both a focus and a strength. Kerry works to help creative people realise their ambitions – making space and time for the creative process to unfold, and taking pride in nurturing and developing the individuals at the heart of every organisation.

Kerry’s perspective on the cultural sector is framed by her atypical route into it – raised in a working-class mining town decimated by the decline of the industry that once held it together. Her first-hand understanding of the barriers faced by many who seek creative careers have made her a dedicated advocate for compassion, diversity and inclusivity in the workplace.

Recent Experience

Before launching Know Your Place in summer 2022, Kerry served as Managing Director and Interim Executive Director at the Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA), leading a team of 60 to deliver an extensive annual programme of exhibitions, film festivals, performances, daily cinema screenings, talks, workshops and more. Kerry led the ICA through the COVID- 19 crisis, quickly shifting to digital initiatives such as Cinema 3 and the ICA Daily during lockdown, and then made major structural and operational changes to ensure the ICA emerged from the pandemic.

Kerry previously spent six years as Chief Operating Officer at Frieze, taking responsibility for the organisation’s international expansion while directing strategic operations for the Frieze London, Frieze New York, Frieze Masters and Frieze Sculpture art fairs. Working across and beyond the art world with everyone from international commercial galleries to government officials, Kerry led the development of Frieze Los Angeles, a major new art fair on Hollywood’s iconic 62-acre Paramount Studios movie lot, and the organisation’s move to digital publishing with frieze.com, the art world’s definitive platform for art and culture.

Before joining Frieze, Kerry led the teams at Anouska Hempel Design, as Chief Operating Officer, and Steffian Bradley Architects, as Business Director. She holds an Executive MBA from the London School of Economics and is qualified with the Chartered Institute of Personnel & Development, with a specialism of employment law.