"Arts management requires an entrepreneurial approach."

It’s a combination of understanding the creative process, along with a sense of what will be a hit with audiences that is crucial to the survival of the arts sector in Australia. Deakin Business School (DBS) is keen to play its part.   

Associate Professor Hilary Glow, Director of the arts and cultural management program at DBS brings a passion for the arts sector and a connectedness with the business community to her day job. This year, she was elected president of the Green Room Awards, a long-standing series of awards, voted for and by Melbourne's performing arts community covering opera, music theatre, drama theatre and more.

It’s a remarkable achievement for any arts identity, and Assoc. Prof. Glow is the first academic to ascend to the role in the Green Room Award’s more than 30 years of existence. This underlines the high regard with which she is held by the arts community.

‘It's a fantastic opportunity for me to see the diversity of work that is happening in the sector from which we draw our students.  These awards are very much part of the ecology of the arts sector and are a vital part of the recognition and celebration of the professionalism and excellence in the performing arts.

‘Our arts management program sits within a business school, and that means that we are always looking for the synergies between the cultural and business sectors,’ she explains.

Assoc. Prof. Glow‘s acceptance of this key industry role is an example of the type of hands-on management DBS focuses on in its arts and cultural management program, where there is a great emphasis on the real world experience of arts managers.

‘The more governments retreat from investing in the arts, the more important it becomes for arts and cultural organisations to diversify their funding sources and this is one of the things we rigorously address throughout the course,’ she says.

‘Arts management requires an entrepreneurial approach not only as to how organisations are run, but how individuals think about their roles.’