After working for five years in the international banking sector, Anita Thornberry moved into the public sector via English Heritage. There, Anita found she was able to mix her academic field of history with the economic experience she gained in the City of London to realise the income potential from the organisations many and varied historic sites. Anita was seconded from English Heritage to the Regional Development Agency in the North East of England to initiate a project using Hadrian’s Wall as a means of economic growth and physical regeneration in urban and rural areas. During her time at One NorthEast, Anita was also given responsibility for agreeing a World Heritage Site Management Plan for Durham and for the new responsibility of strategic leadership for tourism. As a consequence of this experience, Anita was appointed Head of Tourism for the London Development Agency where she worked on the Olympics Legacy Strategy, secured the first revenue Green Book appraisal through Government and oversaw the tourism reaction to the London Bombs in July 2007. From there, Anita moved to the East of England Development Agency to restructure the tourism industry in the region to gain more economic growth from the sector. Anita also advised on the business plan for a new Business Link contract and, again, focused on the legacy benefits of the London 2012 Olympic Games. Anita left EEDA in 2007 to focus on economic growth and regeneration in a Local Authority where she secured £50m of Government funding for regeneration schemes, £100m of private sector funding and, through business support programmes, a more stable SME business sector.
Anita has been working for Anglia Ruskin University since December 2013 where she is leading on the establishment of the Anglia Ruskin MedTech Campus in partnership with three Local Authorities, developing a close relationship with industry, developers, the health sector and academics. Anita’s focus is to help embed the economic growth potential of the HEI sector within Essex and assist in the diffusion of innovation to address the challenge of austerity in the public sector
