Catrina Nixon has enjoyed a long career in heritage, tourism and the arts as a chief executive, marketer and professional consultant, working with public, private and third sector organisations. Catrina offers expertise in business planning, strategy development, marketing and audience development, fund-raising and business development, plus a strong track record in partnership working. Her background has included the regeneration, development and marketing of major heritage projects; destination marketing; orchestral management; museums management and the promotion of national museum exhibitions and heritage sites.
As a consultant Catrina developed a major tourism strategy for the Norwich area and helped set up the destination management organisation, VisitNorwich, going on to become its Managing Director. She previously gained tourism destination management experience in local government on Humberside and Portsmouth Harbour and she has been responsible for marketing some of the leading tourism attractions in the UK, including the National Maritime Museum, the Royal Air Force Museum and the National Fishing Heritage Centre.
Catrina worked with local authorities and commercial development interests in Hampshire on the Renaissance of Portsmouth Harbour Millennium Project. This included the regeneration of the former naval armaments depot on Portsmouth Harbour where she helped to create the award-winning Millennium Commission funded museum, Explosion!, becoming its founding Director. Subsequently, as a consultant, she has worked on a wide range of heritage projects including the creation of a development strategy and successful HLF bid for the refurbishment of Sir Joseph Bazalgette’s Crossness Pumping Station in South East London.
She developed an Economic Plan for Southwold under its designation by the DCLG as a Coastal Community Team and other tourism projects have included the writing of a Destination Management Plan for the Waveney Valley and developing proposals for a new DMO for North Norfolk. As well as creating a tourism strategy for Norwich, other tourism projects have included devising an Olympics marketing strategy for Norfolk Tourism, producing a film on the history of brewing for a Norfolk micro-brewery at the award-winning tourist attraction, Wroxham Barns, and work on a destination strategy for Portsmouth Harbour. In 2018 she worked with Land Use Consultants for the Crown Point Estate on a leisure facility demand study and options appraisal for Whitlingham Park. She has recently completed a Strategic Development Plan for the well-known Norfolk visitor attraction, Fairhaven Woodland & Water Garden.
In addition to working as a consultant in her own right, Catrina is an Associate Consultant with the cultural visitor experience consultancy, A Different View - see Work page for a full list of her projects with ADV.
A music graduate, Catrina spent several years as Marketing Manager for the Bournemouth Orchestras and later worked with the BBC Concert Orchestra and BBC Big Band as Marketing Manager Live Music at BBC Radio 2. She coordinated Familiar Fields, the Benjamin Britten Centenary celebrations in Norfolk and Suffolk in 2012-2013, and undertook the marketing and PR for a new international youth orchestra, Triorca. For the Norwich Philharmonic Society (of which she is Vice Chair), she coordinated and promoted Mahler’s epic 8th Symphony with 450 performers and an audience of almost 2,000 at the Norfolk Showground Arena as part of the 2016 Norfolk & Norwich Festival.
Catrina holds an MBA from the Open University, a postgraduate Diploma in Arts Administration from the City University and a BA Honours degree in Music and Sociology from the University of Keele. Recently retired, she was formerly a member of the Tourism Society, the Tourism Consultants Network and the Association of Independent Museums. Previously Michael Nutt, Catrina changed her name and gender in 2023.