A general view of the Barbican Centre (Getty Images)
(Picture: Getty Images)A Londoner who helped run the Sydney Opera House is returning to the capital to take charge at the Barbican.
Claire Spencer, who has run the Arts Centre Melbourne for seven years, will take the helm at the cultural institution as it celebrates its 40th anniversary and prepares for a multi-million-pound overhaul of the brutalist building.
She will also be tasked with dealing with fallout from the Barbican Stories campaign, whose claims of racism and bullying by staff sparked an internal investigation and led to the centre announcing it would introduce compulsory anti-racism training.
Tom Sleigh, who chairs the City of London Corporation’s Barbican Centre board, said her “leadership” on diversity issues “in previous roles was a significant additional factor in the recruitment panel’s clear endorsement”.
Spencer, who will become the centre’s first chief executive officer in May, said: “Some of my earliest memories in the arts are of the Barbican … and the prospect of returning to London to take up this leadership opportunity at this pivotal moment in the Barbican’s history is both a huge honour and a great privilege.”
