Leadership
For over a decade, Dr Toni James has played a central role shaping arts, education and community development. In senior and executive roles in the cultural, education, charitable and corporate sectors, Toni has delivered effective leadership and governance supporting sustainable development, successfully implementing strategies to deliver a vision for organisations shaped by their values and stakeholders.
Working to improve outcomes for charities and communities across a range of areas, Toni is known for her voluntary work leading new initiatives that support access and development within the arts for underprivileged and marginalised communities.
Summary
Toni has nuanced experience working with people, groups and communities, along with in-depth knowledge of funding, income generation, service delivery, staff development, project management and impact measurement.
She led the strategy which secured the bid to refurbish Jersey Opera House. The transformed theatre complex, is a new £11.5 million hub that will serve constituents across Jersey’s diverse communities and creative sector, Jersey’s most significant cultural investment for 100 years.
She has mobilised innovative collaborations between private, public and charitable sectors to deliver major capital projects, including the plan to transform the exterior of Glasgow’s Renfield Centre into a dynamic outdoor city space and urban garden.
A prolific fundraiser, she has managed philanthropy on behalf of donors and companies in the financial, legal, business and construction industries, leading partnerships that deliver education, wellbeing, community, arts, heritage, sports, environmental and social programmes.
Toni was introduced to a TV audience as a seventeen-year-old keyboard finalist in the BBC’s Young Musician of the Year Competition. She led major educational initiatives for the San Diego Symphony Orchestra followed by four years as Managing Director of San Diego Guitar Festival. She was Development and Operations Manager for the charity Music in Action and in 2022, she was appointed to interim leadership of Jersey Opera House and Arts and Culture Manager for the Government of Jersey.
She is an award-winning performer, recording artist and multi-disciplinary arts producer. Reverberate, co-directed with Blythe Barton Dance won Best Production at the 2015 San Diego Fringe Festival. She won recording of the year from MusicWeb International and Fanfare Magazine with the latter’s Jerry Dubins writing “this quite simply is the most rapturously beautiful performance of the work I’ve ever heard”.
Recognised for her leadership and advocacy driving opportunities in the arts for people experiencing multiple deprivation, she served as Chair of the Board of Directors for CREATE Paisley and Tannahill Arts Festival.
At the age of 29, Toni was appointed Professor of Music, Performance and Pedagogy at San Diego State University School of Music and Dance. During her tenure she was awarded the University’s Exceptional Service Award. She was later appointed Head of Academic Quality & Standards for the Faculty of Humanities & Social Sciences at the University of Liverpool, where she taught performance and pedagogy as well as launching the inaugural Women in Music conference.
As Director of the Piano Academy at San Diego State University Community Music School and San Diego Summer Music Institute, Toni delivered access, development and progression in music for children, young people and adults of all ages and backgrounds.