Ep 22 | Jane Richardson | The Maverick Leading Wales's Museums Into the Future

What does it take to lead a national institution through budget cuts, crumbling buildings, and a crisis of relevance - and come out the other side with a bolder vision than ever?

Jane Richardson, Director General of Amgueddfa Cymru / National Museum Wales, joins Emyr Afan on Inside the Maverick Mind for a conversation that's as surprising as it is inspiring. From a 400-year-old clam that witnessed the Sistine Chapel being painted, to tiny marine worms tracking climate change in real time, to a Welsh hip-hop exhibition sitting next to Turner - Jane is rewriting the rules of what a national museum can be.

In this episode:
🐚 Why Wales's national museum isn't "distinctively Welsh enough" - yet
🔬 The marine worm researchers whose skills could disappear forever
🦣 Tom Bones the mammoth - and why he's actually 3D printed
🎤 Hip-hop next door to Turner, and why that matters
🌍 New international partnerships with Japan and why Wales needs to be round the table
🏛️ The vision for a cultural quarter in Cardiff
💛 Be curious, be brave, be kind - and what those mean when everything's falling apart
🏓 Pickleball, biscuits, and the China trip she'll always regret
Jane is a leader who steers by her own North Star. This one will stay with you.
🔔 Subscribe so you never miss an episode of Inside the Maverick Mind.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:05

Tonight we're going inside the mind of someone who is responsible for looking after millions of years of history and making sure it still matters to people right now. Our guest is the Chief Executive of Amgia de Kimbury Museum Wales. She leads seven national museums, more than five million objects, and a team that has it to juggle crumbling buildings, tight budgets, climate change, public scrutiny, and still find ways to delight a school group on a Tuesday morning. She's taken on that role at a really challenging moment for the organization and for the wider cultural sector. And in a short space of time, she started to steady the ship, opened it up, and pushed the museums into some very unexpected directions. From marine worms that help track climate change to Welsh hip-hop exhibitions and giant dinosaurs to new international partnerships with places like Japan. She's trying to prove that museums aren't just the store cupboards, they're engines for how we understand who we are. Jane Richardson is our guest. Let's get inside her Maverick Mind. Welcome, Jane.

SPEAKER_00 1:12

Well, thank you very much.

SPEAKER_01 1:14

Do you recognise yourself?

SPEAKER_00 1:15

Sounds a bit daunting when you put it like that.

SPEAKER_01 1:18

Yeah, you probably didn't process it all. Um So welcome. Before we go into the worms, hip-hop, and dinosaurs, let's start with you. You've worked across the National Trust, Visit Wales, Conno Council, Cadu, and now you're running Amgierva Cambri, our National Museum in Wales. Looking back, what's the thread that runs through all of that?

SPEAKER_00 1:39

It just sounds really random, doesn't it? Um I think I think there are two threads that go through. I think I think one is a deep commitment to place, and so all of those roles in some way or another have been about adding to the richness of place. Uh but I think the even stronger theme is probably storytelling. You know, I'm a real generalist, I'm not an expert in anything that any of my colleagues do in the museum, but the one thing I I do do is tell stories, and I've done that in every role I've been in so far.

SPEAKER_01 2:06

Where did this love of culture, place, and story actually start for you?

SPEAKER_00 2:10

I think I I grew up with it. Mum was from Wales, from Lampeter, but she she'd met my dad at Lampeter at the university, and they had settled in the northeast of England where Dad got a job. And actually, Mum was really, really unhappy. All of her family were here in Wales. She was a Welsh speaker, she'd studied Welsh, she and she found herself on this cold, windy, wrong side of the UK. And so what I remember is quite a lot of unhappiness that was then balanced by days out. Weeks would be busy, both mum and dad working, but at on weekends we would go out, we'd go to castles, we'd go to National Trust properties, and they were the rich, warm days. That was the business of memory making at that time that I think I'm I'm in right now, that I'd I hopefully provide for other people. But the the highest points of my childhood were around those moments and those times. Um, and you know, my my my dad um is uh was a a Shakespeare professor, you know, so we used to go and watch Shakespeare like other folks watched EastEnders, you know, and and I would read every chance I got. So it was just it was the air that I was breathing the whole time I was growing up, really.

SPEAKER_01 3:18

That's hugely insightful about your childhood. I mean, I I would build dens, and I'm sure that you know I've been I'm building cottages and interior design and being creative, but I expression and play and those instant memories that you created, how they've formed where you are today, that's incredible.

SPEAKER_00 3:36

Yeah, and it's also I mean, even in a in a in a deeper way, it I I I like really actively harvesting learning from experiences in my life. And what I just said about about mum being unhappy, I made a commitment that I would only ever live in a place where I wanted to live and I would make work work around where I lived. And that comes back to the importance of place again. So, you know, when I found Wales as home, um, I knew then that this was it. And whatever I did in my career, it was about living in Wales and being part of Wales. And that's probably why I've ended up with such a bizarre career, because it's had to be fairly opportunistic.

SPEAKER_01 4:12

Well, we're very glad to have you. And we'll the adoption papers are ready. Well, you're half Welsh anyway. On your profile, you describe yourself as a leader in culture and heritage with three grinding principles: be curious, be brave, be kind. Why those three and what do they mean to you on a good day and on a really tough day, also?

SPEAKER_00 4:35

Um, it's funny, isn't it? I I I put that in my um profile because it's taken me most of my life to realise those are the three most important things to me. And sometimes the simplest things are the hardest things to get to. I think the curiosity that comes from the fact that I do love to learn um what in whatever part of my life, but it also came from some training that I did when I was with the National Trust years ago, and the guy that was training us said, Graham License, his name is, and he said, be curious. Um and what he meant was when you're facing obstacles or you're facing opposition, have a curious mindset about it. And that's really helped me where I'm I can be quite absolute and quite definite. And when I find people who are taking a seemingly incomprehensible stance that is the opposite of what I believe, then I need to adopt a curious approach to that to understand why. And if I do that, then I can break through. But if I don't, then then you kind of get a bit of a standoff. So curiosity's been there a long time. Brave, again, that that also is partially my experience of the National Trust. So in my long time there, we did a number of restructures, small and large. Um, and what I realized is if you're making change, you've got to go big. Um, because if you try and avoid the pain of the short term, you just end up with the pain of the long term. So you might think, well, I'll just do a few tweaks. But you get just as much hassle and disruption from a few tweaks as you do through radical transformation. So I've always thought, just whatever you're doing, be brave enough to be big and be bold in what you're doing. Um and then the being kind, I think that's that's the most deep and core value of all, because I think that's about being human, about being beyond the job. So whatever I'm doing, um, you know, I can't do it as the chief executive, I've got to do it as Jane. And the being kind roots me back to that because as Jane, I want to be kind.

SPEAKER_01 6:31

I really relate to those values and I think they're very maverick. You know, when I look for guests, you you stood out for me in terms of your profile, and um be curious is a big part of curiosity to be thinking differently, you know, be brave, go bigger, go home, is my big phrase, and be kind. There's no reason to be not to be kind. Those are the key print things that the the guiding principles that you have. And I it's interesting to hear you talk about in problems as well that they guide you through as well. They're not just things that you have on a good day. You've moved through the public, private, and third sectors National Trust, Visit Wales, Connu Council, Cadu. It's a long list, not a straight line by any means. When you look back now, what did those different words teach you that you've brought into this role at Museum Wales?

SPEAKER_00 7:16

Yeah, it's it's been interesting actually because it's not the ones that might be most obvious that would be most helpful. So, really early in my career, I started out in broadcasting, and I moved from I started initially with BBC in local radio, and then I moved into commercial radio. I worked for a company called GWR, um, and I was based down in Bristol. And the thing that was amazing about GWR was they are so, or they were so audience focused, unbelievably. And when we would finish the main hours of broadcasting and we'd go home about six-ish, in the evening, all these young people would suddenly emerge, and then they go into these little kind of like rabbit warren holes, and they would spend hours phoning members of the public, and they would be phoning to ask, what's your favourite record at the moment? What's your favourite artist? What's your most interesting news story? And then the next day we would have a readout and say, right, at the moment, people are really interested in stories about cancer and they love Robbie Williams, and they and so everything we did on air was rooted in what the audience had told us last night, and that's what I'm trying to bring in to the museum, actually, that you've got it, we have 5.3 million objects, but what we've got to focus on is the audience and how we make those objects interesting and relevant for our audience, the people of Wales, the people who visit. So that's been a really big one. Um, I would say the National Trust taught me to be very enterprising. So again, I remember starting out, and I would be standing in a very wet car park in Slambedrog on the Slame Peninsula, and I would be greeting people in the pouring rain and asking them to become members of the National Trust. And when you've done that for four hours and you suddenly get your first member and you've made about 25 quid for the National Trust, you then value for the rest of your life any 25 quid spend because you know how much it takes to get it. So I think that kind of enterprising how how you can work to make the money for your mission, I got from the National Trust. And then the council, I always think of like the council as my finishing school. You know how posh people a long time ago used to go to Switzerland or somewhere for their finishing school? And that's what Conway Council was for me because it taught me governance, it taught me accountability, it taught me the responsibilities that come with public money, and local councils do that really well. They get a bad rep, but they do that really conscientiously. And you know, as a largely publicly funded organization as a museum, um, I think that gave me some real discipline that I draw on.

SPEAKER_01 9:36

I love that combination. I mean, it's you know, life experiences, resilience, but also governance, which is you can have all the best ideas in the world, but you have to manage those in a you know in a in a public position. Particularly what resonates with me in terms of that graft and understanding the audience to have done those jobs, it does change you. Yeah. And it is about the customer, it is about the viewer, it is about the listener and those that step into your experience that they that you understand what they want.

SPEAKER_00 10:05

Yeah, and you've got you've got to keep that connection. There's no point me being stuck in a meeting room all day, or you know, you know, I I make sure that whenever I'm in the museum, I try and always keep space during opening hours just to be wandering around and talking to the visitors, and I'll ask them, you know, what's brought you in today, what are you enjoying, what do you think of this exhibition? It's the ones that get most scared are the teenagers. If I go over to the teenagers, that you can just see them think, this woman's wanting to talk to me. But you know, how often do are we hearing from teenagers about what they need from a museum? So unless you have those conversations, then you you you're not doing your job, I think.

SPEAKER_01 10:37

No, I think there's a huge connection between audience and product. My whole career has been about making programs that people want to watch. Do you mean it's the same thing, really? Yeah. So you stepped into Amgia Vercambri, the museum, um, at a pretty intense time. Leadership changes, public criticism, funding pressure, buildings in need of serious care. Now, a lot of people would have looked at that and thought, poison chalice. What made you say yes to the job?

SPEAKER_00 11:03

I think partially because I didn't know most of that. Um I knew some of it, I didn't know all of it. At first, I didn't realise it was gonna be a good fit. Um, I had to think really long and hard about it, um, because a couple of people had mentioned it to me, and I I was, you know, I was at that point, it was local government was my world at that point. And but I I think there were two things that really struck home for me. So the first was it was the first time that the museum was looking for a leader who wasn't a museum expert, as I would say, not some sort of international curator or outstanding conservator. What they wanted was um a people person, I think, and an organizational leader. And there was just a sense that I thought it may be that I've got the right skill set at this particular moment in time, and that actually this might be the right organisation for me at this particular point in time, given what I've done before. But I think more than that, it's just I have an absolute all-consuming passion for Wales. And I think there is something about being the insider-outsider. You know, I have a very um rooted in Wales family on my mum's side, but I grew up in England, but I've moved into Wales, and I think there's something about that combination that means I'm just so passionate about our country and the privilege of being able to help shape the story of our country, both the stories that we share among ourselves and the stories that we take out into the UK internationally, um, and really helping to help m make whale shine, I guess.

SPEAKER_01 12:34

Your passion and your humanity shines through. When you arrived, what did you see that perhaps others couldn't um either in the organization or in the potential of the museums that made you think this is worth the fight?

SPEAKER_00 12:49

Without doubt, the people, the team there. Um and you don't really, when you visit a museum, you don't get to see the depth of the people and the depth of the expertise that goes into making that experience for you on that day. But I think it was my first day in the National Museum in Cardiff, because of course I live in North Wales, so you know I I know the the cultural landscape in the north much better. And I I was having a bit of an orientation and I met one of our um natural sciences colleagues called Caroline Butler, and she wanted to introduce me to the natural sciences collection, and she took me in front of this glass case thing, and she pointed at a clam. And you know, I I can be impressed by a monet, and I can be impressed by the big kit that we've got in Big Pit. But when I saw this sort of clam in a box, I wasn't wowed, if I'm honest. And then Caroline just started telling me the story, and she said that clam is was 400 years old. That clam saw Michelangelo paint the Sistine Chapel. It lived through the French Revolution, it lived through the First World War, it's it knew our royal family, and here it is, sitting in a glass box in Cardiff. And I thought, one, yeah, the clam's pretty cool, but secondly, I thought, my word, this is just one colleague among 700, and the power, the commitment to the story and to what it means for Wales, I thought we can do amazing things here.

SPEAKER_01 14:09

Again, storytelling and relating an object to people's lives. You've warned publicly that with the combination of budget cuts and building issues, we could be looking at galleries or even sites having to close if something doesn't change. How do you hold that tension between being honest about the risks and still giving your team and the public a sense of hope?

SPEAKER_00 14:32

Yeah, honesty can be problematic in a job like mine. Um I promised the team when I came that I would always be honest with them. But sometimes when you're speaking publicly and you're speaking very honestly, it can land you in a bit of trouble. But I think, you know, people have got to be people have got to know what the facts are. And I so I I have had to be honest about the financial challenges the museum is facing. And if you are honest, then it kind of you're not messing about with trying to paint over cracks or pretend something is what it isn't. So your energy goes into well, what do we do about it? So I think on the one hand you can say, yeah, we have got this this big challenge, but on the other side of it, you can think big and you can look to grow, we can you look what the opportunities are and you can excite people about a future. And um I worked with um a dear colleague in National Trust called Keith Jones, and his mantra was always if the project is good enough, the money will never be a problem. And that's what I think. If we if we're creating something in the museum that is so compelling, so exciting, that the people of Wales couldn't dream of being without it, that it will always have a future.

SPEAKER_01 15:38

I 100% work to that same mantra. If you build it, they will come. You know, it's it's that vision, it's that energy and excitement that goes behind perhaps a new vision for the museum that we haven't thought before. Because we're gonna have to reinvent as we go along. All the, you know, that's what I've done all my life. Let's get into what we call the Maverick mechanics, the nuts and boats of how you're trying to make this work. You've got strategy 2030, seven national museums over 5.3 million objects, and a lot of spreadsheets with red on them. When you sit down with your team and say, right, what we are actually going to do, where do you start with something like that?

SPEAKER_00 16:17

I mean, the first thing is you have to find a map or a route through just the volume of stuff. Because I could get really distracted because there is so much. There's so much that we could be working on, there's so much potential of what we could do. Um, but I think I've been able to put I like boxes, my head is full of boxes, and I put things in boxes in my maverick mind. Um and so I've got one big box which is about stabilizing. So, what are the things that we do that stabilize our organization, create a strong foundation, basically equip us to do everything else?

SPEAKER_01 16:50

Smart.

SPEAKER_00 16:51

And then I make sure I've got the really great people who can do that stabilization, and then I've got another box which is about the growth and the future, and where do we want to be, and what is the future of this museum? Because as you say, museums are dynamic things. I think of museums as verbs, not nouns. They are active, doing things. Um, and so we want to be really clear with everybody about where this museum could go and what it could be for Wales and in the world. And so then I also identify the people who could help deliver that real vision for growth and development. And then we just got to set the priorities in both of those boxes so everybody knows what they're doing and when they're doing it and how the two support each other.

SPEAKER_01 17:28

I would love to peek inside those boxes. I don't think I'm going to for a while, but when you do open the box, it'll be an exciting time. I know it will. I love the story you told recently. Um, one of the most effective ways of monitoring climate change is by tracking tiny worms on the seabed. I think that's how we connected first. Uh you spent an afternoon with the marine invertebrates team and discovered the dazzling world of marine worms and how they help us understand what's happening to our planet. Can you tell us that story and and what it did for you to see the role of the National Museum in the climate crisis? Because that wouldn't occur to me.

SPEAKER_00 18:06

No, it was one of those, you know, stop you in your tracks moments. About once a month, I try and spend half a day with one of the disciplines of the museums, because we do cover everything. I always say it's like it's from monetes to mollusks. We cover the whole range, really. And there are some days where I know what I'm gonna get, you know. And if if I'm going to the Wool Museum, I know what's gonna be, you know, what I'm gonna be looking at with the textile and the blankets, and that's how it usually is. But I had no idea when it came to Marine Invertebrate Day. And one of the amazing things about the museum that I didn't realise beforehand, but it's an independent research organization, so that means it's the same as a university in many ways. We have that research status for Wales. And so there are lots of colleagues who are hidden away in the bowels of National Museum Cardiff, working on really interesting research that is feeding into the wider society of and life of Wales and UK and Europe. And two of our leading researchers are our marine invertebrate colleagues, so um Kate and Teresa. So they very enthusiastically greeted me and they took me through all the research they've been doing for I think about 25 years. So they have been tracking these tiny, tiny little worms, I mean, smaller than your little finger, uh little fingernail, tiny, tiny things. And they, because they keep tracking them, they can see where they are now, where they used to be, how they look now, how they used to look. And from this, they can tell how the changing temperature of the climate is affecting the temperature of the sea, which is affecting the creatures that live in the sea. And from that, you can do a map of what climate change actually means in real time for us all. It's absolutely phenomenal. And that was one of the examples where I really became clear for me that museums are about our future. You said at the start, they're not dusty old store boxes or whatever. And some people think museums are about the past. They are completely not. They're about learning from the past. The past is like the roots of the tree, but the museum is about the branches and the leaves, it's about what it tells us for our future. And that's what we can do, particularly with natural sciences collections, is understand what is happening with climate change, what adaptations are needed. But also on that day, you know, as with this job, there's always the kind of the sweet and the sour, but um it also helped me realise about something that we've got that's at risk. So um, the two colleagues I mentioned, they are one of only four people now in the whole of the United Kingdom that have the taxonomy skills to be able to identify these individual worms. So people from Africa, from Americas, all over the world send images of the little worms in their area. And my colleagues and two others in England are the only people who have those skills to be able to draw them and then be able to identify them. And when those four people retire, that skill set is gone. And if we're not careful, that's the kind of period that we're living through right now, a period of rich expertise and skills, but without generations coming through behind them. And if we're not careful, the expertise we take for granted right now won't be there for the generations to come.

SPEAKER_01 21:10

Oh, sobering thought, because you want to see that tracking continue. I mean, I'd like to see the tracker on that side. I don't know how they do it, but it they do it, and it sounds amazing.

SPEAKER_00 21:20

And they're so enthusiastic, they're so passionate about it, and they've got pictures of these worms all over the place, and some of them are furry, and some of them are translucent, and some of them are sort of neon colours. You think, my goodness, I had no idea these things existed.

SPEAKER_01 21:31

Yeah. I think it's smart to take time out of your diary to visit different parts. That discipline, and sometimes I'm sure you think about that email or that board meeting needs to be you find time. So you find time for people.

SPEAKER_00 21:44

Yeah, and it's you know, otherwise, I need to make sure that my work and my priorities are the relevant and right ones. And if they're not rooted in our collections and then focused on our audience, then there's a good chance I'm wasting our time and wasting the resources of the museum. So I have to. To and and also, if I'm really honest, lots and lots of meetings, particularly on Zoom, it saps the energy out of you. And this is the stuff it it feeds my soul and re-energizes me. And you know, when I come out of three hours or so with some of our curators or conservators, I'm absolutely buzzing. And then that's dangerous, because then the ideas come and then the emails start flowing, and then my teams are like, oh no, what's she talking about now?

SPEAKER_01 22:24

When you look across the museums from fossils and worms to art and industry, what are the big themes you want Amgied Vakambri to be leading on between now and 2030?

SPEAKER_00 22:35

So it's about none of those things. That's what's really interesting, because I think the museum is ideally placed to respond to one of the very biggest, if not the biggest, challenge of our time, and that is the polarization in our society. You know, since Brexit and probably before, we've become a society of othering, of setting up a stance or a territory and defining yourself behind your wall and pointing at the people behind another wall. And that's not a healthy way to live as a society, and it's not the way that community works. And Wales has always been a nation of community. That's part of the wonder and richness of Wales. But increasingly we are seeing this othering, and that's what I think the museum brings. We can be the space of understanding. It's back to that curiosity. We can be the place where you can sort of find out more about the people on the other side of that wall, or why that wall was built up in the first place, or why that wall actually is probably the same wall as you've got, and how you can connect across it. So I want the museum to be a place of connection, a place that's helping bring about cohesion in our communities, and a place where anybody in Wales can see themselves. Because if you feel excluded from something, that leads to division. And I think in the past, museums have been exclusive and they've only told the stories of certain communities and certain identities. But we're not going to do that in National Museum Wales. We're going to be the museum where anybody can come through the door and see themselves and they can learn more about others. And whether they do that learning through a 400-year-old clam or by sharing the wonder of a money, um, you know, there will be points of connection and we will do our little bit to try and create more togetherness in society.

SPEAKER_01 24:20

I love that idea. I think it's so needed in society. And I think if Wales can lead in in that way, as we have with the Future Generations Act, and so many other ways, and I think our nation does reflect that um shared experience, that welcome, the cross of you know, I think if that big signs on the top of the door, that doesn't matter what creed, what colour, what nation. 100% you know, very timely.

SPEAKER_00 24:43

And and I think we should be proud of what makes Wales different. And and people, if you don't know Wales, you don't understand the depth of what it is in our lifeblood that makes Wales different. But that, you know, we are the home of the cooperative movement. Um, you know, that is who we are. We are we are people who live in our Mechte square, in our immediate community, and we reach our hand to others. Um and we don't need to kind of be shaped by the divisive narratives that are occurring elsewhere. I th and I think, as you say, you know, we we are the nation of the Wellbeing of Future Generations Act, we are the nation that adopted culture as a sustainable development goal. We can do things differently in Wales, and we should be proud to do that.

SPEAKER_01 25:23

And created the NHS, you know, as a Welshman that led on that.

SPEAKER_00 25:27

Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 25:28

Yeah, yeah. I think one of the things that shows your Maverick side is the range of what's on offer. Recently we've had a Welsh hip-hop exhibition, which I enjoy greatly, shining a light on a culture that hasn't always been welcomed into these kinds of spaces. For you, what did that exhibition represent? Was it just a cool show or was it a statement about who museums are for now?

SPEAKER_00 25:50

It was definitely a cool show. Um, and I think I think for me it was quite totemic. We've got a um a show uh on at the moment, uh, Gwen John. It's outstanding. I'm so proud of it. That's the kind of show that people would expect us to do and we should do and we will continue to do. But hip-hop was a deliberate embracing of the fact that museums need to reach wider and they need to tell a broader range of stories. There is no one single culture for Wales, and there is no one single community for Wales. We are a nation of multiple communities, multiple identities, with so many rich stories to tell, and those stories haven't been shared in national institutions before. So hip-hop was a way to do that. And what was so wonderful about hip-hop, most museum exhibitions are based from a collection. So it'll be the artworks that you've got or the furniture, whatever. But we don't have many objects for hip-hop, it's an oral kind of tradition, isn't it? So it was a really interesting experiment in creating an exhibition based off oral histories. So basically, it was a whole load of interviews of people who were engaged at the time, sharing their experience, and then bringing those lived experiences to life once again in the museum with a few objects to kind of give it some colour, and it went down really well. And what was so cool and slightly bizarre about it is that it was bang next door to Turner. So we had, because it was the big Turner anniversary, so you'd come in and you'd see the Turners, and then you'd turn right and suddenly you were right into hip-hop, and people loved that, and you had both audiences going to both, and it was kind of opening people's minds a bit. It was it was great.

SPEAKER_01 27:24

I loved it because uh, you know, there I saw DJ Jaffa in the scene of years, yeah. Bench and all the the people that I grew up with. I saw myself in that exhibition only because I was more cool, Cumrian music, but the hip-hop was alongside that, and it it resonated, you know. Yes, it's nostalgic, but it also you've got to understand where you've come from and what the you know, why that was created and the whole punk movement that followed it. Yeah. No, it was, you know, I I looked around and I saw the turn exhibition and smiled to myself, I must say. At the other end of the spectrum, you've got Tom Bones, the massive mammoth that kids fall in love with in the fire at the National Museum. When you stand in the gallery and watch families meet Tom for the first time, what goes through your mind about the power of objects and spectacle?

SPEAKER_00 28:10

Do you know? Honestly, that still gives me goosebumps. It really does. I absolutely love it when you just see a little small person holding a parent's hand and just looking right up at Tom Bones the mammoth. I think, I mean, it does feel a privilege because we live in a largely 2D world now, because everything is through the screen, and even if you've got the biggest telly imaginable on your on your living room wall, there's still only a certain sense of scale. And so to come in and see something on the scale of Tom Bones and and for Tom to sort of link you back through the millennia into your own past and to understand that those beasts were here in Wales, you know. Imagine them roaming the bay. You know, it's just it it I I think it's just really exciting to see that those objects can still excite and inspire in the way that they have done in the past. And what's really fun about Tom Bones, of course, is he's not the actual mammoth, he is a 3D printed replica. So the mammoth itself was too fragile. The bones are too, um, they they could kind of crumble, and so they can't be out on display like that. And my colleague Mared, who looks after the site in National Museum Cardiff, she was determined to have a mammoth there. So she went out and back and said, Has anybody got a spare mammoth? And surprisingly, nobody does have a spare mammoth they could lend us. And she was not to be daunted, so she said, right, we're gonna print one then. And so we found a company uh down in Portsmouth and they printed it bone by bone for us. They were printing every day for four months. Um, certain pieces like the the skull, um, that took us like 14 hours, and had there been an electricity cut in the middle of it, it would have been wrecked, they'd have had to start again. Um then all the bones had to be painted to make them look old, um, and then they all had to be reassembled here in Cardiff, and then of course Tom had to be named, which he was by the public, and and now there he is greeting visitors when they come. So it's been a great story.

SPEAKER_01 30:04

Tom Bones, you couldn't write it. Well, you did, and the fact that it's a 3D printer, you know, creation just tickles me even more. My grandson Max Ends looked up on that, and with a fascination about dinosaurs and that period, and bringing it alive at scale, I think it's important because we don't get that from cartoons or films or anything, and living history is is is hugely powerful. But it's not just Wales looking at itself. You've recently signed a partnership with the Oita Art Museum in Japan. What does it mean in 2026 to be a national museum for Wales that's also in conversation with the rest of the world?

SPEAKER_00 30:39

It has to be. It's absolutely part of our responsibility, and it's what we owe to the people of Wales. I've been thinking quite a lot about this about how the I spend a lot of time with other directors of national museums, and there's a really big difference, I think, between those of us who are running national museums in Wales, Northern Ireland, and Scotland compared to those who are running them within England. And within England, there are multiple national museums, and so they tend to tell a particular story or they share a particular collection. Whereas in Wales, we have the one family of national museums, so we hold the responsibility of telling the national story of Wales, and that is an international story, and it is a story that should be shared globally, and so it's part of our responsibility to it culture should be one of Wales's greatest exports. I think it is, and so it is our responsibility to take Wales out into the world and to be brave and bold in the way that we do that and the partnerships that we forge. And so, for example, in Japan, I mean there's a lot of synergy in the interests between people of Japan and people of Wales. You know, in the north where I live, there's a very strong partnership between the town of Conway and Himeji. We share a love of textile, all sorts of different things. And it's creating opportunities. So through that partnership, we recently were able to secure funding for the designer Theo James to go out. She went and did a residency in Japan, she was on Japanese telly, they had big VIP receptions for her, and her designs and artwork is now known within Japan. We're going to be taking exhibitions out there, taking exhibitions back from Japan. And that's all about Wales being actively engaged in the world through the museum.

SPEAKER_01 32:16

And Welsh Government are underpinning those efforts as well.

SPEAKER_00 32:20

Yeah, absolutely. And it fits with um Welsh Government's international strategy. So, you know, as a small nation, we need to make sure that we all bring our combined energies to agreed priorities. So we always make sure that the international work we do is absolutely aligned with what Welsh Government wants to do. And we also want to do that with the Library and with Arts Council Wales and all the other partners so that we get cut through in the territories that we work with and um and the opportunities that we develop.

SPEAKER_01 32:45

Brilliant. There's also a big anniversary on the horizon for I'm Girlberg Humbrie, another moment to take stock and to ask what kind of museum do we want to be for the next hundred years?

unknown 32:57

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 32:58

When you imagine a child walking into a museum on that anniversary, what do you hope they'll feel and experience?

SPEAKER_00 33:05

Yeah, so it's our hundredth anniversary of the museum as a whole and the site in Cardiff in 2027. And for me, I don't think the experience is good enough yet for that child in 2027. It's not what I want it to be. There are fantastic things, we've made such progress, but I'm interested in what we do for the next hundred years that follows. And for me, that is about redefining what it means to be a national museum in Wales. So we have the most amazing collection and beautiful galleries, and it's so wonderfully curated, but in many ways it replicates what you might find in London. Um, and for me, it's not distinctively Welsh enough. So I want the National Museum of Wales to be a museum that is specifically of and for the people of Wales and to be the place where people come to know Wales. So you've come on your holiday from the United States and you've somehow ended up in Cardiff, and you come through the doors and you are immersed in Wales and Welshness and you come out understanding a little more. So that's what, in and by the another hundred years, we'll be doing that in spades, and that's what we're working towards at the moment. And you know, through our family of museums, we're telling those different stories. We tell the story of Slate in Thamberis, we tell the story of wool in Dravach, we tell the story of coal. There are lots of individual stories, but how do we bring that all together in the nation's capital to really capture what it is to be Wales right now and where that sense of Wales has come from based on its past?

SPEAKER_01 34:34

I think that distinctiveness and identity, particularly in the capital, is vital because it's about standing out in a in a marketplace of museums. And also you've got a lot of kickback against the word museum, you know, which is not not helpful.

SPEAKER_00 34:49

No, and and people have a misunderstanding of what a museum is. As I said, she for me, a museum is an active thing. I want our museums to be alive and busy and bustling. We're currently transforming the museum in Tlamberis, the National Slate Museum, and when that reopens, it is gonna be absolutely buzzing with the stories and the sounds and the smells of slate. You know, it's gonna be absolutely vibrant, and that's what they should all be, really. But I think the point about the capital is a really interesting one because there will be lots of people that say, if you're gonna do a big investment, can you re-justify doing it in the capital? And I think it's really important that me, as the chief executive who lives in Flandidno, says, yes, it's got to be in the capital. I want us to do lots more in North Wales, and I want a much stronger ecosystem for the cultural sector in North Wales. But for Wales to be a truly a true international player in terms of culture and to be a global cultural destination, you have to have that offer in the capital really rich and joined up. And you know, I'm talking with colleagues and friends in the Royal West College of Music and Drama and the University of Cardiff because between us we could create a cultural quarter for the capital. And once you've got that kind of offer, if you think of some of the great cultural cities of the world, people will travel any distance to come to that kind of cultural offer. So we've got to be absolutely unashamedly ambitious for our capital. Even those of us who live in London know. So yeah.

SPEAKER_01 36:16

I love that kind of quarter idea. Um because we are shy as a nation celebrating the the great institutions that we have, you know, the conservatoires, the experiences. Talk about experiences. The experience economy is growing. The national museum experience could be just as incredible, and that's what people want. They want an experience.

SPEAKER_00 36:36

Yeah, and and different kinds of experiences. So on the one hand, the digital experiences are growing, and you're having things like the immersive Van Goghsen. But on the other hand, you've got the VA Victorian Albert storehouse in the east end of London, which is basically a load of racking with collections stored on it. So you've got a whole spectrum there, and it's back to understanding what you've got that's different, what your audience wants and is interested in, and how you package it up in a way that creates a fantastic memory for anybody who comes to enjoy it.

SPEAKER_01 37:10

Time for Maverick Maxims, my favourite part of the show. Quickfire questions, first thing that comes to your mind. First one, what's a book exhibition or piece of art that changed how we see the world?

SPEAKER_00 37:22

I would say that was going to see the Anish Kapoor exhibition in the Haywood Gallery, which I think would have been late 90s when I was finishing university. I went with my then boyfriend, now husband. I'd only ever really seen exhibitions of paintings before that. Um I didn't know anything about sculpture. Um, and when I went, I didn't know what we were going into, I think we were passing and just thought, well, let's pop in. And to see these massive silver spheres, orbs, and reflecting the world back at you upside down in different ways, it literally made me see the world differently. It blew me away. I couldn't get over it.

SPEAKER_01 37:56

Another life experience that's fed into what you're doing now, obviously, which is fantastic.

SPEAKER_00 38:00

Yeah, I think so. I think so. And and I think this, you know, I am not an art expert. I am I'm I'm not one of these academic museum people. I I experience museums much like most people in our communities will experience them. And and if I can be blown away without knowing anything about Anish Kapoor or what kind of work those sculptures are, but if they can have an impact on me like that, then I want to create that for others.

SPEAKER_01 38:22

Yeah, definitely. But you are and you will. Um what's one place anywhere in the museum family where you go when you need to reset or think?

SPEAKER_00 38:31

So I'm never definitely not going to say one of our seven museums, because that will cause eruptions back at base. I have a standout really special place, which is Aurel Place Glenowedhu. It's in Thlambedrog on the Theme Peninsula. It is a beautiful art gallery. It is perfectly positioned above the beach in Thlambedrog. Gwyn, who oversees that gallery, he's opened up the woodlands, they've got beautiful paths. They've created this extraordinarily beautiful and brave architecturally designed cafe, and the cake is to die for. So you've basically got everything you could ever want.

SPEAKER_01 39:06

I'm going just for the cake. But I have heard it's incredible, and I've been there. Uh I'll you've you've inspired me again to go. What's a leadership cliche you hear all the time that you secretly think is nonsense?

SPEAKER_00 39:17

I don't think it's a leadership one, but the one that drives me up the wall is there's no smoke without fire. There is often smoke without fire. Have you ever seen anybody set off a smoke bomb? You know, and and I think this whole thing, oh, there must be going something going on there, it can be really damaging. It can be damaging for leaders, for organizations. And I think if ever people hear themselves saying that, it's worth just questioning. Is that really true or is somebody wanting you to think that's the case?

SPEAKER_01 39:41

I've never thought of that, but you've you're very you're you're quite true, and people want to think the worst, so they will plant that seed. Be curious, be brave, be kind. If you could only keep one of those for a whole year, which one would you choose and why?

SPEAKER_00 39:55

It's got to be be kind. If only all of us could just be that little bit kinder. If we could all be 10% kinder, imagine what a better world it would be. And we've got all these terrible things happening across the world, you know, at local and international level. And wouldn't it make a difference if we just put kindness first?

SPEAKER_01 40:15

I'm with you with that. Finally, what's one small ritual that keeps you grounded when the emails and crises are playing in?

SPEAKER_00 40:22

I'm dreading telling you this one. Um, pickleball. Pickleball is my new love. I'm obsessed. I discovered it on holiday. Um, it's like a form of um, it's like a like cross between tennis and table tennis. You play it either outside or inside, but on like a tennis court, but shorter, with a hard bat, and you largely play as doubles, and you can be good at it pretty quickly, unlike tennis, which you can play for 10 years and still not be very good. And it gets you exercising, it's social, it is addictive. And I am completely and totally hooked. Saturday afternoons, pickleball come hella high water.

SPEAKER_01 40:59

Is that a league?

SPEAKER_00 41:01

Oh, yeah, yeah. Yeah, and there's Welsh national championships and people going off around the world competing, and there's women's leagues, and and I play as part of a club locally. When I discovered it on holiday, and I thought, I'm gonna come back and see if there's a local club, and of course there was. Um, but on a Saturday, I will be playing. There's a there's a couple of lads who are 14, and there's a more than a couple who are in their 80s. It's it's a sport for everybody.

SPEAKER_01 41:23

Well, you keep on surprisingly big, but that one. I mean, when you think of pickle, I think of jar. I don't think of sport.

SPEAKER_00 41:29

No, this is a pickle you can really smash about the place, and it makes you feel great. In fact, there was last time I played, there was one really horrible shot I did when I smashed towards somebody who I'm really friendly with, and I just had to say, I'm sorry, that wasn't you, that was work, but it's out my system now.

SPEAKER_01 41:44

Yeah, well, we all need those smashing moments. You went across sectors steeped in some pretty complex organizations, and now you're staying in one of Wales's most loved and most scrutinised institutions. What's a challenge or even a mistake that really stung at the time? But what do you less you still lean on today?

SPEAKER_00 42:02

I've made one really recently, and I'm cross with myself because it's a lesson I should have learnt years ago. Years and years ago when I was running a national trust property called Place Neu with an Anglesey, the finances were really tough, and we were looking behind every cushion to save money, and we decided that we would stop providing biscuits for the volunteers. Stupid, stupid mistake. All these people who allow us to open the property, give them their time for free, week in, week out, and we cut the biscuits, and of course, you know, all hell broke loose. And I tried to tell myself at that point, see the bigger picture, Jane. Look beyond the individual numbers in front of you and see the bigger picture. But I've just done it again, and it just goes to show, even though I I say I love to learn some lessons you have to keep trying to relearn. And the one recently is um, I don't know if you heard in the news, but there was a trade delegation to China, a UK trade delegation. And I got invited to go, and it kind of came in the inbox in the middle, it came in over Christmas, and there was however many hundred emails to sort. And I looked at it and I thought, oh, that could be interesting. So we got some more details sent, and the price of the airfare was eye-watering. And I was thinking, well, you know, China isn't really one of our target markets as a museum, and I don't think I can justify that airfare. I'm gonna let it go. So I very politely declined. And then a week or so ago, I caught up with a colleague who had gone, because there were a bunch of people who went for museums, and a colleague from uh National Gallery Scotland went, and when she told me of the conversations that happened in the plane and the people that she'd been able to meet, and then the conversations she'd had in China and the opportunities, and you know, and there's a really big interest in China around impressionists, and we've got some pretty good impressionists here in Cardiff, and I just thought, Jane, you missed the bigger picture. I was so worried about the ethics of spending that much money on a on a plane ticket that I didn't think that Wales needed me to be on the plane. Because when there's only one national museum, you know, that Wales needed to be seen to be round that table, and I owed it to Wales to be there. So I'm cross with myself.

SPEAKER_01 44:10

Well, hindsight's not a wonderful thing, it's a terrible thing because often I've had those similar decisions that that on the surface it looks like the right decision, but you can't always call everyone. And I'm sure there's others that you've called on that were the right ones, you know. But um I should have got you biscuits earlier. On the other side of that, you all get told what we should do: take the safe job, don't rock the boat, don't say the difficult thing. Can you think of a moment when you ignored perfectly sensible advice and you're really glad you did?

SPEAKER_00 44:43

Yeah, it's a bit of a random one, but I'm really proud of it. So it was not long after I started Conway Council, and there was an ongoing issue, massive issue. So the council had fundraised over the whole course of a regeneration of Colwyn Bay, the council had brought in £100 million for Colwyn Bay, and as part of this, um, it had created a new beach and new promenade, and you know, it was all really beautiful. But in the middle of it all was this crumbling pier, and it was an eyesore, and it was a bit dangerous as well, to be honest, and the council wanted it demolished. And the council were furious because the community were objecting. Now, the community knew that they had a historic asset which had been part of the town from its heyday as a Victorian resort, and they were enormously proud of it. And they were furious with the council because they wanted to demolish this important asset. And when I came, I was this was part of my portfolio, and I was told, you know, this is irreconcilable, it has gone on for like two, three years. There is no way of reconciling these two positions. The council insists on demolishing, and the community insists on keeping. So I went to meet with the community and listened and talked to them a little bit. And I just said, Well, what about what about if we didn't demolish? What about if we dismantled the pier? And they were like, oh, well, dismantling's alright. Um, and so we could put the bits somewhere and potentially one day it could be rebuilt. Yeah, yeah, we could do that. So the community worked for it. So I went back to the council and said, Well, would you be happy if we just dismantled it? We've got lots of space, we could store it in council land, and council were really happy, and suddenly we had a way through that worked for both sides. And it what what what struck me then, and I draw on it often actually, is there's usually an overlap somewhere in whatever the interests are, you've just got to try and find that overlap. But secondly, and even more importantly, never underestimate the power of words. You know, it might not be the concept people are objecting to, it might be the words you're using to describe that concept. And so I often think about is this dismantling or is it demolishing here?

SPEAKER_01 46:50

So yeah, that's a very, very good answer, and uh, I can relate to that definitely. We have a feature on the show called the Maverick Moment, that instant where you look around and think quietly to yourself. I don't think anybody would have done what I've just done. I mean, you say it quietly to yourself, it's not a case of being proud, but what are the things that you've done, either in Amgedva Klemmer or before, that is your Maverick moment?

SPEAKER_00 47:17

Um I've had one really recently in the Amgedva that I I I have confessed to the t to the team reduced me to tears. Um so when I came, I I talked to you about the fact that when I was at National Trust, it was about being enterprising in order to deliver the mission of the charity, and I believe very strongly in that. But when I came to the museum, there were lots of things that were and are being done really well in the museum, but our enterprising activities weren't in a great place, and we weren't actually making a profit from them. So that was something I set my sights on. I thought we we've got to be able to turn this around, and um, we have a fantastic guy leading on our commercial activity, Mark, and um had a bit of a chat with him and said, What is it that would make the difference to you? And he said, Well, I I need good people and I need the permission to get on with it, which didn't sound that complicated really. So, you know, long story short, he brought on some great talent. Um, and uh we've been really building up our kind of enterprising culture and mindset across the whole of the museum. Anyway, just a few weeks ago, we had the Association of Cultural Enterprises. This is the annual Oscars for the cultural sector and for the kind of money-making parts of the cultural sector, and all the biggies are there in like all the really biggest names in culture. And we got nominated for four awards. I was like, oh my word, four nominations! The team were there en masse in Birmingham, and then the texts started coming in, and we won three of them and were runner-up in the fourth. And I'm getting the cymri, you know, for for in in some like two years for Mark and his team to be there on a stage taking those awards, and you just think if you can just set a direction and if you can believe in your team, um, and if you can allow people the space to do what they're brilliant at, you can achieve anything. So that that was a wonderful moment.

SPEAKER_01 49:08

That's a beautiful pinch me moment, and you know, rooted in integrity and support of your people. You've led teams in tourism, heritage, local government, and now the national museums. You've seen the best and worst of how organizations behave under pressure. For someone listening who's trying to lead a team through tough times, maybe not on your scale, but their own version of it. What's one piece of advice you'd really want them to take to heart?

SPEAKER_00 49:35

I would say what I learned from a previous Director General of National Trust, which is trust your gut every time, because you will have all this anecdote and data and fear and opinion and prejudice and everything will be flying around your head, and it will change from a Monday to a Tuesday, and the only thing you can be sure of is your gut. So always trust it, always listen to it, and then back that up by always taking your holidays. So I'm really strict with myself and my team because if you're in the middle of a crisis, you'll always say, I'm too busy, I can't take the time. And you're you're never at your best if you haven't taken a break. And most crises are not short. So if you hear yourself thinking I'm too busy or I'm if there's too much pressure, there's too much going on to take a holiday, that probably means it's exactly the right time to take a holiday because you'll come back from it and you'll be better able to face whatever it is that's on the desk.

SPEAKER_01 50:28

Wise words, I'll heed those. We should finish every episode with this, complete the sentence. A maverick is someone who?

SPEAKER_00 50:37

A maverick is someone who steers by their own North Star.

SPEAKER_01 50:42

Excellent, excellent. I'll uh I'll add that to the list. You've got a very bright North Star, I must say. And finally, when you look ahead beyond the next funding round, beyond the next exhibition, what do you hope people will say Amgetva Committee stood for during your time as chief executive?

SPEAKER_00 51:00

I hope there's a lot of people who say it was a really great place to work and work that we could take pride in. I hope they say that they became museums that were alive and were busy, dynamic places where everybody felt welcome. And then above all, I hope people will say that was the time when the National Museum really became distinctively Welsh.

SPEAKER_01 51:26

Brilliant. Thank you so much, Jane. Honestly, your insight has been invaluable. But also, I'd work for you. I want to come and you know. Well, I want to I'll come and visit when you're ready. Please do. Okay, and then you'll experience it. Brilliant. So from tiny worms to the seabed to giant mammoths in the gallery, from hip-hop in the museum to partnerships with Japan, Jane shows that heritage isn't just about the past, it's a way of thinking about our future. And to everyone listening, remember the world doesn't change by playing it safe. Be curious, be brave, be kind, and keep that Maverick mindset alive. We'll see you next time on Inside the Maverick Mind.