Heba elCheikh is an author, consultant and trainer in art management and creative entrepreneurship, with extensive experience as an outdoor performance curator and producer, and as a street and community arts evaluator. In 2018, she was named a local associate of the NESTA Creative Enterprise Programme in Egypt. She was a Clore Fellow for the year 2016–2017. And since 2017, she has been an active member of the European contemporary art network Circostrada, having previously served as a member of its steering committee. She published her first travel book in 2017 in Arabic with Kotobna.net, and in 2015, she published her thesis Community Arts Evaluation Practices in Egypt viaLap Lambert Academic Publishing.

She studied French, translation and journalism, and in 2012 she received her Master’s degree in Arts Management from Utrecht School of the Arts, with a focus on community arts and evaluation. In 2011, she co-founded Mahatat for contemporary art. Believing in the democratization of the arts, the cultural project aims to decentralize the arts and make them accessible to everyone through arts in public spaces and community projects.