Briana Pegado
Briana Pegado FRSA is a fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. She was named one of Scotland’s 30 Under 30 Inspiring Young Women in 2017 and has won a number of awards for her work as a social entrepreneur as founder of the Edinburgh Student Arts Festival (ESAF) in the creative industries over the last eight years. She has a Master of Arts with Honours in Sustainable Development from the University of Edinburgh and studied for an MBA at Central Saint Martins in 2018. She has worked across the National Theatre of Scotland, Custom Lane – Scotland’s Centre for Design & Making, Voluntary Arts Scotland (now Creative Lives), and the contemporary art world. In 2019 she became Chief Executive of Creative Edinburgh and a Co-Director of Creative Informatics an Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) funded project to invest in data-driven innovation in the creative industries across the Lothians in partnership with the University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh Napier University, and Codebase the largest tech cluster in Europe. She is now a data-driven innovation ambassador for the Edinburgh Futures Institute.
She was Chair of the board and then interim director of YWCA Scotland – The Young Women’s Movement, former Co-Director of We Are Here Scotland, and former Creative Director of Fringe of Colour Film Festival.
Currently, she is an anti-racism facilitator and governance consultant who has worked with the Scottish Policy and Research Exchange (SPRE), the Universities Policy Exchange Network (UPEN), Africa in Motion Festival (AiM), Be United, Glasgow Museums, Glasgow International Festival, Glasgow Life, Stellar Quines Theatre Company, Rape Crisis Scotland, and Craft Scotland.
She is the Chair of the Scottish Government Culture Fair Work Task Force. She published her first book Make Good Trouble: A Practical Guide to the Energetics of Disruption in April 2024.