Can a Stately Home Become a Brand for Everyone?

What does it take to restore one of the UK’s most ambitious heritage sites and make it matter to people today? In this Field Notes episode of Fellow Talk, we sit down with Sarah McLeod OBE, CEO of Wentworth Woodhouse, to talk about leading a £200 million heritage regeneration project with no endowment, no simple roadmap, and a mission that reaches far beyond preserving the past. Sarah shares how Wentworth Woodhouse is being reimagined as a place of public value for the twenty first century. We explore what it means to balance commercial pressure with community ownership, how accessibility and inclusion shape the visitor experience, and why restoring a historic house also means building new stories with the people around it. The conversation touches on leadership, disability inclusion, entrepreneurial charity models, team culture, the financial strain facing the heritage sector, and the changing expectations people now have around work, wellbeing, and purpose. This is a conversation about heritage, but it is also about relevance, belonging, and how organisations create places people genuinely feel part of. For the chronically curious, this is Fellow Talk. Find more conversations and insights at: https://fellowstudio.com