The Wales I want — why I am joining the board of the Institute of Welsh Affairs and the board of Sinfonia Cymru

I was delighted and honoured, recently, to have been invited to join the boards of two organisations that I value and respect greatly. The first, the Institute of Welsh Affairs is an independent think tank working to make Wales better. The second, Sinfonia Cymru is a young and innovative chamber orchestra for Wales.

I want to talk a little bit about why they are both incredibly important and also why I’m happy to announce that I’m joining their respective boards.

Sinfonia Cymru

I first became aware of Sinfonia Cymru in my old business, Small Joys, when we were asked to pitch for a redesign of their website as they were going through a change in their organisation.

It was a total pleasure to work with the team to ensure they got a website that was bold, flexible and adaptable. In many ways, this could be a description of the orchestra itself.

Sinfonia Cymru prides itself on giving talented young musicians who are at the start of their careers to work on innovative projects.

How can an orchestra be innovative? Let’s take a recent collaboration that they facilitated.

Cân yr Adar, a collaboration between jazz pianist/composer Gwilym Simcock, singer/songwriter Kizzy Crawford and Sinfonia Cymru, is a bilingual and visual show inspired by Carngafallt in Powys. It was brilliant, spellbinding, wonderful.

It’s long been my belief that Wales can compete on a global scale in terms of its cultural clout. We’ve made it quite clear that pop, rock and other modern genres are being produced in Wales (I was one of the team who started Welsh Music Prize to help do this) but it’s time to help the world see how important other genres can be in that too.

Institute of Welsh Affairs (IWA)

After the referendum on EU Membership a few years ago, I felt that a piece of my cultural identity was about to be stolen away from me. Until then, I considered myself a European, then Welsh and then maybe from Britain.

I believe deeply in the European project. And I still do. But unfortunately, it’s a project that I can’t contribute to for much longer in any meaningful way.

Realising that this was not going to be an ongoing part of my life made me realise that I would have to get busy helping to form a strong Welsh identity and encouraging others to engage with civic society.

And that’s why I joined the board of the IWA.

I believe that if we’re going to be successful in a post-EU Britain, we have to explore and move forward the idea of Welsh identity.

There are many ways that I could have taken part in that but for where I’m at in my life at the moment, I think the IWA is the best option where I can help create the biggest change for Wales.

How do those fit together?

Ultimately, my motivation for both of those board roles and also my day-to-day work as CEO of doopoll is to be able to influence the kind of Wales that my daughter (she’s 6 months old and a totally great hüman) will grow up in.

I want her to be able to grow up in a Wales that is globally confident, has lots of opportunities for her to do whatever she wants to, and, when she grows up, for her to be able to choose to stay in Wales (if she wants to) without worrying about her career, personal wealth or political choices. I want her to be able to be proud of the culture. The music. The books. The theatre. The film. The art. The language. The environment. The technology. The invention.

I guess we can all agree that that would be a great outcome for our kids. That’s what I want for future generations in Wales.

And that’s why I’m delighted to be joining the board of the IWA and also of Sinfonia Cymru — two organisations who, I think, are pushing the boundaries of what Wales can be.