Nesta recruits two directors

Government-funded arts body The National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts is boosting its creativity and innovation programmes with the creation of two director-level positions.

Venu Dhupa joins in October as director of Nesta’s fellowship programme and Mark White joined last week as invention and innovation director. Both are tasked with expanding and refining their respective divisions.

The fellowship programme is designed to ‘develop talented and creative people’, according to a Nesta spokesman. The invention and innovation programme is a competitive, open-access funding initiative created to ‘help people turn original ideas into products or services’, he adds.

Dhupa is executive director at the Nottingham Playhouse, where she has reportedly increased audience numbers, pioneered development programmes and secured funding. White joined from CDC Capital Partners, where he was senior investment manager.

Nesta was set up by an Act of Parliament in 1998. Its income, around £10m a year, comes from the National Lottery. Its mission is to ‘support and promote talent, innovation and creativity in science, technology and the arts’, according to an official statement.