Festival Ambassadors

Broadway Arts Festival has created the role of Ambassador as part of its development from being a local arts festival to becoming a Festival and school’s outreach programme known regionally and nationally.

Ambassadors are figures of national prominence who work with us to further develop:
  • an enhanced range of performers and speakers
  • the size and reach of our Benefactors and sponsors
  • a much broader audience demographic
  • the name and profile of Broadway Arts Festival

Ambassadors have complementary skills sets and experience and each bring an invaluable level of knowledge and understanding of the arts to our organisation.

Margot James

Margot James grew up in Coventry and was educated at Millfield School and the London School of Economics and Political Science.

Margot is Executive Chair of WMG at the University of Warwick. Margot champions the innovative scientific research with industry and education that WMG leads with government and other stakeholders. Margot also chairs the independent Climate Change Advisory board to Coventry City Council. She is also a Non-Executive Director of Provident Financial Group and Non-Executive Chair of Taso Advisory.

Margot served as a Member of Parliament between 2010 and 2019 during which time she held a number of roles in government. She was Minister for Digital and the Creative Industries and prior to that Parliamentary Under-Secretary at Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy. Before entering politics Margot started and grew a communications business in the health sector which she sold to WPP in 1999.

Margot lives in the Cotswolds with her partner and enjoys hiking, yoga, music and making time for friends and family.

Richard Ormond

Richard Ormond is the great-nephew of artist John Singer Sargent who famously painted “Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose” whilst staying in Broadway.

Formerly director of the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London, 1986-2000, and chairman of the Watts Gallery, Compton, UK, 1987-2019.

Richard is the co-author of the John Singer Sargent catalogue raisonné, 9 vols., 1998-2016.

Currently working on a complete catalogue of Sargent’s 750 portrait drawings in charcoal, and on a selection of his letters. Curator of the forthcoming exhibition of ‘Sargent in Spain’ at the National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C.

Haidee-Jo Summers VPROI RSMA

Haidee-Jo Summers VPROI RSMA

Haidee-Jo is a full-time professional artist known for painting landscapes and seascapes ‘en plein air’.

Vice President of the Royal Institute of Oil painters (ROI) and full member of the Royal Society of Marine Artists (RSMA) her work can be seen each year at the Mall Galleries in London in these prestigious society exhibitions. Haidee-Jo is an editorial consultant for The Artist magazine and author of two books on oil painting with Search Press, ‘Vibrant Oils’ and ‘Plein air painting in oils’.

Although oils are very much her preferred medium, Haidee-Jo also produced a large body of work for the Encyclopaedia of Watercolour Techniques and is an avid sketcher. In recent years she has been invited to judge UK and international plein air events, after winning many prizes for her work which features fresh and vibrant brushwork coupled with keen drawing and observational skills.

“The Broadway arts festival is a very special event celebrating the unique artistic legacy of Broadway while inspiring, educating and enriching the lives of so many today. What could be nicer than staying for the whole festival, joining in with arts workshops, watching theatre and music performances, listening to the expertise of an array of interesting speakers, buying unique gifts to take home and enjoying garden tours amongst this beautiful Cotswolds village and landscape. I’m delighted to have been invited to be further involved with the festival as an ambassador and look forward to helping in any way I can.”