Monica Davidson
CEO, Creative Plus Business
Monica Davidson, Director of Creative Plus Business Group
Monica Davidson is an award-winning expert on the creative industries, who began her creative life as a freelance journalist and filmmaker before starting a production company in the early 90s. Her experience highlighted how unprepared creative people can be for a life of entrepreneurship. Monica began using her expertise to help other creatives develop and improve their business skills, and she now works with individual practitioners and larger arts organisations as a business advisor, strategic consultant and workshop facilitator. She focuses on goal setting, business and strategic planning, financial literacy, capacity building and marketing.
Monica is a regular guest lecturer at AFTRS and NIDA, and she is the Australia author of Freelancing for Dummies. In 2013 Monica was appointed as the first NSW Creative Industries Business Advisor by the NSW Small Business Commissioner, and in 2014 completed her Masters Degree in Screen Business at AFTRS, focussing on gender discrimination in the Australian screen industry. In 2015 Monica was named as one of the Westpac 100 Women of Influence for her work in the creative industries. Since then her award-winning company Creative Plus Business Group had tripled in size, and now helps creative people improve their business skills across Australia. The Creative Plus Business Group also delivers the NSW Department of Industry Business Connect program as creative industries business specialists for the state, and in 2018 were awarded the Outstanding Achievement Award for their work in metro, regional and rural NSW.