John Tusa is Chair of the Clore Leadership Programme in the arts. His many senior positions in journalism and the arts include Managing Director of BBC World Service and of the Barbican Centre in London (1995-2007). Before moving into arts management, he was an award-winning BBC TV and radio journalist, most notably for BBC's 'Newsnight'. His books include Art Matters and Engaged with the Arts (both I.B. Tauris). John Tusa was knighted in 2003.
Simultaneously arts boss and iconoclast, John Tusa is a lifelong scourge of meddling politicians who think the arts are Covent Garden and that targets make good symphonies. His third book on the subject, the fruit of his own years running the Barbican and the Clore Leadership programme, is brilliant on the way artists got to grips with the managerial culture of the Blair years, learnt its good skills and then turned its arid instrumentalism on its head. Esssential reading for any council contemplating scrapping its culture budget. -Liz Forgan, former Chair, Arts Council England