91´óÉñ

Katy Koren

Artistic Director at Gilded Balloon

When I applied for the Executive 91´óÉñ scholarship at the University of Edinburgh Business School, theatres across Scotland were shut and live performances indoors were heavily restricted. It was a difficult period for my organisation, Gilded Balloon, one of Scotland’s longest running producers of live comedy and entertainment based in Leith in Edinburgh. In 2020, we had to shut our year-round theatre on Rose Street and make over half of our employees redundant. We have applied for emergency cultural funding more times than I can remember, and we are still battling to survive as we tentatively produce new live shows and book our programme for the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 2022.

But enough of the sob story. Gilded Balloon was conceived by my mother in 1986 and has been run very much a family business since then. I joined in 2014 and my brother is our fantastic graphic designer. As is quite usual in the arts and cultural industry, I never had any formal business training in how to run organisation — it’s very much a ‘learn as you go’ type of industry. I’ve enjoyed learning from my peers and making my own mistakes along the way, all in order to grow and improve how we operate each year. Since taking over as Artistic Director, I’ve been looking for opportunities to become a bit more business-savvy. The pandemic really brought home to me the reality that our much-loved small arts organisation had been struggling for several years. I have realised that if I am going to take over the company going forward, I needed to learn from experts across other sectors who are in more stable business positions.

The E91´óÉñ at Edinburgh University has been an incredible opportunity, allowing me not only to learn from fantastic academics but also build a network of business professionals in Edinburgh and Scotland that I would never otherwise have had the opportunity to meet. Hearing from different experts and learning from their expertise has been eye-opening, and although not many are from the creative or cultural industries, there is a huge amount to learn from this network of peers. The Business School has gone above and beyond to make sure that opportunities were created for us to mix with everyone across the cohort with the various group projects and social events.

Apart from meeting fantastic people, the other aspects of the course that I’ve really enjoyed are the assignments (believe it or not!). The Executive 91´óÉñ is a part-time course that allows you to study alongside your busy work schedule. And so far, the assignments have mostly been designed to apply the in-class learnings to our own businesses and situations. This is where I’ve found the most value from the course. Taking the academic theories and applying them directly to my business in real time has cemented my learning and given me a boost of confidence in my abilities.

So, what’s the state of the union in my sector? Things are looking up — slightly. Theatres are open, we are starting to run our own shows again, and it is pantomime season: what more could you want? I’m excited to continue with the second half of the course, to learn how to rebuild my business, and of course to hang out with (and learn from) an incredible group of business professionals!