Honours for Live Theatre’s top brass

Honours for Live Theatre’s Chief Executive and Chairman in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List

 

Live Theatre’s Chief Executive, Jim Beirne and its Chairman Paul Callaghan have both been honoured in the Queens Birthday 2012 Honours List announced today (Saturday 16 June).

 

Jim Beirne

Jim Beirne has been appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) and Paul Callaghan, Chairman of Live Theatre, has been awarded a CBE Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE).

 

Jim has been Chief Executive of Live Theatre since 2000, overseeing the £6million capital refurbishment and has overall responsibility for the management and vision for the company.  Live Theatre has a turnover of £1.6 million and up to 40 staff when in production. Next year, in 2013 Live Theatre will celebrate that it has been creating plays on Tyneside for 40 years. 

Prior to moving to Newcastle to work at Live Theatre Jim was Director of Performing and Combined Arts for Yorkshire Arts Board (now Arts Council Yorkshire).  Jim is a Fellow of the Royal Society of the Arts, has been a trustee of The Sage Gateshead and Leeds College of Music and was awarded an honorary Doctor of Letters from Northumbria University last autumn.

 

Paul Callaghan

Paul is Chairman of the Leighton Group, the North East based technology, software, media and communications group that he founded. He was Chairman of ONE North East from 2010 to 2012 and was also Chair of Chairs of all of England ’s Regional Development Agencies for that period. In 2009 he was commissioned as Deputy Lieutenant of Tyne and Wear.

 

Paul is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and of the Institute of Administrative Management . He is the fourth ‘David Goldman Visiting Professor of Business Innovation’ at the University of Newcastle and was awarded an Honorary Fellowship by the University of Sunderland in recognition of his contribution to the business and academic life of the region. He is now Chairman of the University’s Board of Governors.  He is genuinely passionate about helping the North East region to grow and prosper. He believes that this is only possible by extending education, culture and the arts and by developing a talented and well-educated population and creating a fair and equitable society.