After four years at the helm of YPIA, Katya Kazakevich, Imogen Morris and Stella Toonen will be stepping down as Directors and handing over to a new generation of young arts leaders.

We are excited to announce that taking over will be Yasmin Hemmings as Director of Planning, Rebecca Johns as Director of Communications, Kate Jones as Director of Finance and Partnerships, and Esther Poole as Director of Finance and Regional Partnerships. All four currently hold project management and marketing roles on the YPIA team.

Four years ago, Katya, Imogen and Stella took over from Founding Directors Nicki Wenham and Andreas Flohr, and since then YPIA has grown considerably. With a monthly programme of events they have built a following of almost 10,000 young arts professionals across the UK, celebrating YPIA’s 10^th anniversary season this year.

They set out to diversify YPIA’s original focus on classical music and theatre by including a broader spectrum of creative and cultural industries, and then extended YPIA’s reach further by organising networking events in Leeds, Glasgow, Birmingham, Cambridge, Cardiff and Nottingham, making YPIA go UK-wide.

During the past four years, they have also represented young people working in the arts by contributing to Ed Vaizey’s Culture White Paper on young people’s access into the arts and by being a signatory on the Cultural Learning Alliance’s ImagineNation publication. They have spoken at careers events at Birmingham University, the Royal Albert Hall and the V&A, raising awareness of the wide range of jobs that exist in the arts sector, and have joined mentoring days and speaker panels as part of the Women of the World Festival at the Southbank Centre and the AntiUniversity festival.

Since its foundation in 2008, YPIA has run over 130 events with more than 200 speakers from the cultural and creative sectors, including Sir Nicholas Serota, Jude Kelly, Darren Henley and Sir Peter Bazalgette. The organisation's talks programme has given almost 5,000 young people the chance to hear from the sector’s top leaders, and share ideas and insights with peers to effectuate change in the arts world.

More information about the upcoming season and plans for YPIA’s future projects will be shared at the 2018-2019 Season Launch on Wednesday 19 September 2018. Save the date in your diaries and come say hello to the new Directors! More event details will be revealed in due course.

Picture, from left to right: new Directors Kate Jones, Esther Poole, Rebecca Johns, and Yasmin Hemmings.