Chris Murray
Former Director of Core Cities
Chris took up post as Director of the Core Cities Group in 2006, a collaboration between ten UK cities that sit at the centre of the largest economic areas outside London.
Chris is a visiting Professor of Practice at Newcastle University, an Honorary Fellow of the Heseltine Institute at Liverpool University, and sits on the Advisory Board of the Prime Ministers’ Regeneration Investment Organisation.
He is Chairman of award winning social enterprise company Fusion21, an intelligent procurement organisation that recycles profits into social outcomes. He has a long association with economic development, regeneration, culture and public policy.
A member of the national Egan Task Force on Skills, during 2005 Chris was seconded to the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister to establish the Academy for Sustainable Communities, a national regeneration skills agency based in Leeds.
In 2002 he was appointed as a Director of the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment, the Government’s watchdog for urban design. Before this Chris worked in local government for 10 years.
Earlier in his career he has also worked in education and as a psychiatric social worker. Chris holds qualifications in art and design, teaching, business and marketing and European cultural planning.
Chris has recently published a new book on cities with Charles Landry: Psychology & the City: The Hidden Dimension.