Christine Cort
2015 Inspirational Leadership in Arts & Culture Award Winner

Christine started her career at Riverside Studios where she worked with many great artists including Kenneth Branagh, Vanessa Redgrave, Gore Vidal and Max Wall, before joining the Design Museum.

Returning to the North West for a career break, she was persuaded by Alex Poots to help set up the Manchester International Festival (MIF) and is now Managing Director. MIF is widely regarded as one of the most successful Festivals in the world. It is the only Festival presenting entirely new work and previous shows have included Damon Albarn’s Chinese Opera, ‘Monkey: Journey to the West’, Victoria Wood’s musical, ‘That Day We Sang’, the stunning ‘Life and Death of Marina Abramovic’ featuring Willem Dafoe and Antony Hegarty, and a unique staging of ‘Macbeth’ reuniting her with Kenneth Branagh.