Keynote Speakers

Uplifting and inspiring perspectives, insights and lessons from those with experience of creating and delivering socially impactful places; why they believe in it; how an international, inter-disciplinary and intergenerational approach is key, and rooted in the 'power of people'.

Aki Carpenter

Aki designs the kind of museum spaces you remember long after you've left. As the Vice President and Chief Creative Officer of RAA, the world's largest design studio for museums and storytelling spaces, her work helps people see themselves in history. She's shaped the Obama Presidential Center Museum in Chicago, the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, D.C., the Museum of the Moving Image in New York and the International Slavery Museum in Liverpool. When she's not designing, she's building community in her field: she's National Board President of SEGD and co-founded the BIPOC Directors Collective. We’re delighted Aki will be joining us in-person while on a visit from New York.

Laura Pye

Liverpool-born Laura is Director of National Museums Liverpool, the only national museum group in England outside of London. She came home in 2018 after years as Head of Culture for Bristol City Council. Currently, she's leading a ten-year masterplan to transform Liverpool's historic waterfront, which includes the major redevelopment of International Slavery Museum, Maritime Museum and Canning dry dock and quaysides. The project will also see the revitalising of public space across the waterfront, bringing unused dockside buildings back to life. Linking storytelling, heritage and community, co-production sits at the heart of this work. Laura started out in museum education, and she's still focused on the same thing: making museums feel like they belong to everyone. Expect big ideas on what happens when a city is brought together to reimagine its heritage.