Beate Becker is an independent consultant who, for the past 15 years, has pioneered creative economy initiatives at the city, state, and regional levels. She was the Founding Director of DIGMA, the Design Industry Group of Massachusetts, and previously directed the Massachusetts Cultural Council’s Cultural Economic Development program and the New England Creative Economy Initiative. She also served as Special Assistant for Creative Sector Development at the Boston Redevelopment Authority.

Beate has collaborated with Mt. Auburn Associates’ on creative economy projects in New England, Louisiana, and the City of Lowell. In addition to her strategic and analytical work, she was the co-author of Mt. Auburn’s reports on The Creative Economy Initiative: Blueprint for Investment in New England’s Creative Economy; Louisiana: Where Culture Means Business; and On the Cultural Road: Strategies for the Creative Economy in Lowell, MA. In 2007 she represented Mt. Auburn Associates at a global conference in Turkey entitled Cultural and Creativity: Creative Capital Istanbul.

Beate’s global clients include the Austrian Trade Commission, the Scottish Highlands & Island Enterprise, and the UK’s National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts. She has been a frequent speaker at Creative Clusters’ conferences in the U.K. and was selected by the Swiss government to participate in the 2009 Think Swiss: Design and Innovation study tour of Switzerland. Most recently, she contributed to A Way Beyond Creative Industries, a book that was published and released by the Austrian government at the World of Ideas Symposium in Vienna in June 2010.

Beate holds an MBA from the Yale School of Management and a BA from Bennington College. She is a former jeweler and flute maker and an alumna of the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston.