Graham Henderson (cultural entrepreneur)

A qualified solicitor, he previously worked as a commercial litigation lawyer at one of the largest law firms based in the City of London, Clifford Chance.

In 2004 he launched The Company of Adventurers Ltd in an attempt to raise funding for independent arts and cultural documentary films.

[6] Henderson was keen to celebrate the life and work of the poet and organised a special event in the Great Room at Christie’s on the eve of the auction of the manuscript.

The success of the event led Rosamund McCarthy, its founder and first chair,[8][9] to invite Henderson to run Poet in the City.

In 2007, Henderson became involved in the campaign to save the Regency property at 8 Royal College Street that had been occupied by the French poets Arthur Rimbaud and Paul Verlaine in 1873.

The Rimbaud and Verlaine Foundation was created to take advantage of this gift, and with the long-term goal of establishing a European-style "poetry house"[14] at the property, providing a cultural and educational resource for the residents of the London Borough of Camden.

[1] Henderson has long championed the arts as an important source of social capital, and as a fundamental building block of a healthy civil society.

[20] Enjoying a central position on the Twickenham riverside, the sculpture was commissioned to celebrate the 2015 Rugby World Cup, and was opened in a ceremony in September 2015.

Associated with this work, Henderson has also been involved in high-level advocacy for innovative approaches to public art, including an active role in the 2014 Farrell Review of Architecture and the Built Environment, writing the official essay in support of its findings,[22] and continues to work with BEAM in promoting new approaches to the commissioning of public art.

[30] The programme, held for the first time in 2015,[31] brings together leaders to experiment and take risks, to explore new business models and ways of working and to develop innovative organisational cultures.