aladin's professional interests are eclectic. Examples of projects and processes reflecting these follow below. (Further details at the More Info + Contact section.) ====================================================
Strategy and Leadership: consultancy and academic enquiry Having been a senior leader in the private, voluntary and public sectors aladin now undertakes strategicexecutive consultancy, including as an expert adviser, sounding board and evaluator and in relation to: strategy, vision, communications; organisationaland individual dynamics; relationship, team performanceand productivity; skills, performance and development. aladin began developing his formal and technical management consultancy skills during the 1980s when he was undertaking advanced post graduate academic research in global economy and strategic aspects of international relations, at the London School ofEconomics (LSE) where he was also an Editorial and Management Board member of it's scholarly international studies journal Millennium. As a consequence of these academic interests, he began contributing initially on an ad hoc basis as an observer, adviser and strategy consultant on the fringes of the international debt restructurings of Brazil and Mexico and also to strategic planning and development at international banks including Citibank, Chase Manhattan, Bank of America and American Express, institutions including the IMF/IBRD/BIS/ Federal Reserve Bank/Bank of England and global corporations including Schlumberger, EDF and LVMH. His professional portfolio has since evolved considerably (see below and overleaf). Undertaking extensiveconsultancy in relation to leadership and strategy, aladin has also been a keynote speaker at events such as the inauguration of Copenhagen Business School's Centre for Arts and Leadership, gave a keynote speech on 'Leadership' at the World Petroleum Council Forum (Paris, 2009) and is a principal of LondonUnited, the sustainable leadership collective. In the NGO/social sector he has advised Head4Biz, Skylight and London Cyrenians Housing. ===================================================== Policy-Making, Strategic Planning in Culture, Media, Sport, Arts, Heritage, Tourism Between 2000-4 aladin became a principal architect of the world’s first integrated strategic plan for the development of culture, media, sport, arts, heritage and tourism of a capital city – that for London. Headhunted to the post of Co/Vice Chair Cultural Strategy Group, London’s City Hall by the capital's first elected executive mayor Ken Livingstone, aladin's remit included the 2012 Olympic bid, creative industries strategy, sustainability, diversity, stakeholder consultation. He has gone on to contributeto strategic development at various culture-centred policyorganisations and institutions in the U.K. and internationally,including the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, the Arts Council, British Council, Whitechapel Gallery, The Spitz, Amoosi in the UK and internationally the Goethe Institute, NordicInstitute for Contemporary Art, Nordic Council, Rooseum Malmo, Aarhus Kommune, Love Parade Berlin, Living Art Museum Reykjavik. ===================================================== Sustainable Management and Sustainable Development In recent years aladin has been authoring heterodox, original initiatives in the fields of ‘sustainability’ and 'sustainable management' which include: advising the Mayor of London/City Hall/GLA on the consultation and marketing communications aspects of London's first Energy Strategy whilst an internal advisory group member 2000-4; devising, directing and delivering the complex, interdisciplinary, cross-platforms 'Charcool' project (exploring climate change messaging) commissioned in 2007 by DEFRA/Forum for the Future/LSX; co-initiating / co-animating the London United sustainability collective with whom he had a key role in 2008 inaugurating 2gether Festival/Guardian/Channel 4, The 'S' Word DCMS/ARUP/Tate Modern and Greengaged/Design Council; giving strategic counsel to The Spitz, Carbon Descent and the ethical/sustainable fashion label amoosi; in 2009 with John Grant and others devising and delivering the 2009 initiative Tweehive, a digital and live hub for Pestival - which subsequently won the category 'U.K. Conservation Project of the Year' at the Observer Ethical Awards. =====================================================
Community Development and Youth Work Between 1990-3 aladin led the practice, restructuring and re-development of youth and community developmentwork with vulnerable and ‘at risk’ groups across 20 public housing estates in the Walworth/Camberwell/Peckham area of Southwark, London, for the locally based social action charity Cambridge House and Talbot. Between 1993-5 aladin was a senior associate of a community-based national organisation based at La Paillade housing estate in Montpellier, France: Peuple et Culture. ===================================================== Facilitation and Moderating Since the 1980s aladin has been facilitating and moderating creative professional development for groups and individuals across contexts.He is sought after for his visionary, analytical and empathetic approach to developing leadership and strategy through group and individual work. aladin has continued to pilot and apply his practice in diverse settings, whichrecently have included board development for complex international corporations, residential and ‘off-site’interventions with street gangs and homeless persons and the facilitation of strategic vision development for creatives and heads of creative industries at threesuccessive events in 2008 ( 2getherFestival, Greengaged/London Design Festival/Design Council and DCMS/Tate ). At Pestival at the Southbank Centre (2009) and D&AD New Blood Festival (2010) aladin facilitated entire audiences to become immersed in radical, alternative perspectives and paradigms. aladin has undertaken interventions at the invitation of a number of leaders across disciplines, who have included: Franko B, JeanCailliau/LVMH, William Davie/Schlumberger, Vincent de Rivaz/EDF, JaneGlitre/Spitz, John Grant, Elisabet Gunnarsdottir /NKD+Shorefast, AdrianJackson/CardboardCitizens, Ken Livingstone/City Hall, MouradMazouz/Sketch, Marita Muukkonen/NIFCA, Sanjay Nazerali/MTV+BBC, Judith Nesbitt/Whitechapel+Tate ===================================================== Communications Consultancy aladin has a wide-ranging experience of marketing-communications, branding and stakeholder-consultationapplied to civil society at large, having worked on complex and sensitive briefs such as the development of the ‘London brand’ at City Hall. Hehas advised on the international relations, promotional and stakeholderengagement strategies and reputation management of local areas such asDeptford in London, cities such as Aarhus and Reykjavik, governmentsincluding those of Germany, Bosnia and Estonia, and regionalinternational groupings such as the Nordic Council of Ministers andEuropean Union; he has been a trouble-shooter and consultant on criticalmarketing-communications and positioning initiatives for globalcommercial brands; he has been a creative director on an eclecticrange of projects – from grass roots climate change campaigns tointernational cultural event collaborations involving multiple partnersand platforms; he was a keynote speaker on‘societal branding’ during Brand.New" (London, 2000); was showcased at Design Inspirations (London, 2009) and D&AD (2010). ===================================================== Interdisciplinary Cultural Animation An active artist-animateur across artforms, aladin has been operating through the curatorial vehicle subvirt since the early 1990s. Amongst other platformsaladin’s projects have featured in the British Festival of Visual Theatre, theLondon International Festival of Theatre, the National Review of Live Arts andthe Portobello Film Festival, U.K. Abroad his work has been associated withinterdisciplinary events including Minority Report, Aarhus/Denmark; Keeping itReal, Reykjavik/Iceland; Under De-Construction, Helsinki/Finland; NorseFerry Tales, NKDDale/Norway; Radical Loyalty, Jarvakandi/Estonia; Sculpture for the Ahmed Family, Berlin; Organizational Art Summit, Liseleje/Denmark.In the U.K. aladin’sprojects as curator-artist have taken place at sites including: theInstitute of Contemporary Arts (ICA),Hayward Gallery, Queen Elizabeth Hall, Whitechapel Gallery, Victoria and Albert Museum (V+A), BritishMuseum, Natural History Museum, Shakespeare's Globe Theatre, South LondonGallery, Jerwood Space, Chisenhale Dance Space, Battersea Arts Centre (collaboration with Tassos Stevens/Coney),Bullion Room/Hackney Empire, Boiler House / Truman Brewery and Trafalgar Square, London. He has also consulted on television documentaries - and was commissioned to direct a pop video for DJs Freddy Fresh and Fatboy Slim. In 2009 aladin inaugurated mugh-al, curated for Pestival /South Bank Centre. In 2010 he contributed to Unsignal, Luxury Goods - Art in 50 Words and critical interventions/animation for Manifesta 8 (Murcia) . ===================================================== Magic aladin is a renown magician who has received great critical acclaim for his prodigious sleight-of-hand skills – his work features in the Universal Pictures motion picture ‘Magicians’ (2007); the globally award-winning Book of Cool (2006) featuring two dozen of the world's greatest virtuoso entertainers; a pop video for "Badder Badder Schwing" by DJs Freddy Fresh + Fatboy Slim; the BBC1 TV pilot "The Shuffler” and the BBC1 TV show "Late with Russell Peters". aladin has opened on-stage for Paul Weller, Beth Orton and Mark E. Smith, entertained at Alexander McQueen's official London Fashion Week after-party and also been on-camera and on-stage host for a magic festival which had a combined live theatre and television audience of hundreds of millions in Bangalore, India. Currently researching 'Mugh-al.'
‘Extraordinary magician and artist’ (The Sunday Times); ‘Mystical cardmeister’ (The Times); ‘Virtuoso magic and visual poetry’ (Time Out); ‘Master of sleight of hand’ (Evening Standard); 'Magic as it should be performed' (MagicWeek).
