Professor John Holden

John Holden is a Visiting Professor at the University of Leeds, a former Honorary Professor of the University of Hong Kong, and an Associate at the think-tank Demos, (where he was Head of Culture for 8 years). He has MAs in both Law and Design History. John has three main areas of interest: first, cultural value, where he is the author of works including The Ecology of Culture, Influence and Attraction, Democratic Culture, and Cultural Value and the Crisis of Legitimacy; second, cultural leadership (he is a Trustee of the Clore Leadership Programme, and co-author, with Robert Hewison of The Cultural Leadership Handbook), and finally, cultural diplomacy, which he has written about in Cultural Diplomacy and All Together. He has given many keynote speeches in the UK, the rest of Europe, Japan, Asia, North America and Australasia. John has served as a member of the European Expert Network on Culture, and on boards and committees at Oxford University, the Royal Opera House, the Design Museum, the Hepworth Wakefield and the Arts and Humanities Research Council.