Rethinking gallery processes with Callum Hale-Thomson
“It was really exciting to me that there were these non-art world concepts that I could apply inside the art world with the right relationship frame, and I could see how that could drive impacts”
In this month’s podcast, First Thursday founder Callum Hale-Thomson joins us to explore entrepreneurial approaches to long-standing challenges in the art sector. We discuss increasing pressures on galleries and dealers and explore why simply telling galleries to “behave differently” is unlikely to prove the solution for lasting change.
Callum Hale-Thomson is the founder of First Thursday, a sales intelligence platform that leverages AI and automation to help commercial art galleries identify and nurture their most valuable collectors. By improving internal efficiency and cutting out manual tasks, the platform enables sales directors to focus on growing their most important relationships.
Since its launch during Frieze London in 2024, First Thursday has grown rapidly to support dozens of leading international galleries both online and at major art fairs like Frieze, Art Basel, and The Armory Show. Our inaugural Art Fair Report launched in August 2025 and was featured in ARTnews, ArtTactic, Observer and more, reaching hundreds of thousands of readers. Before founding First Thursday, Callum spent a decade honing his expertise in AI, data analysis, and strategy at early-stage startups, most recently leading Strategic Operations and International Expansion at Otta.com. While working in startups, he moonlit as an artist agent for both emerging and established contemporary artists, working on everything digital, from managing social media accounts to building collector databases.
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