Trustees
As stipulated in the 1833 Act and the 1969 Charity Order, the Board of Trustees is made up of four Life Trustees, appointed by the Board of Trustees as a whole after wide consultation, and Representative Trustees from five organizations: the Royal Society, the Lord Mayor and the Court of Aldermen of the City of London, the Society of Antiquaries of London, the Royal Society of Arts and the Royal Academy of Arts.
Biographies
Mr Guy Elliott (Chairman) holds an MA in Modern History from Oxford University and an MBA from INSEAD, France. He has been Director and Chief Financial Officer at Rio Tinto plc and Rio Tinto Limited since 2002. In this capacity, he looks after all strategic development and financial affairs. Previously, Mr. Elliott was Head of Business Evaluation at Rio Tinto. This principally involved the appraisal of capital projects and M&A activity. He was also President of Rio Tinto Brazil from 1996 to 1999. He has been a non-Executive Director of Royal Dutch Shell since 2010 and was a non-executive director and senior independent director of Cadbury plc from 2007 and 2008 respectively until 2010. Prior to joining Rio Tinto in 1980, he was at Kleinwort Benson. Guy was on the Development Board of the Art Fund (formerly NACF) from 1993-6, and since 2010 has been a member of the Development Committee for The Canterbury Trust.
Mrs Bridget Cherry OBE, FSA, Hon. FRIBA read History at Oxford and History of Art at the Courtauld Institute. She began working for the Pevsner Architectural Guides as a research assistant in 1968 and was series editor from 1971 to 2002. Mrs Cherry is also the co-author of several Pevsner guides. She has served as a commissioner for both English Heritage and the Royal Commission on Historical Monuments of England, as a Trustee of Historic Royal Palaces and as a Board member and Vice-Chair of the Heritage of London Trust. She is a Council member of the London Topographical Society. She was elected a Life Trustee of the Museum in 1994. She serves on the Museum’s Buildings Committee.
Professor Uta Frith DBE, FBA, FRS, FMedSci read History of Art at the Universität des Saarlandes, Saarbrücken before she changed direction to study Experimental and Clinical Psychology at London University. She is now Emeritus Professor of Cognitive Development at the Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience at University College London. Professor Frith has pioneered studies of mind and brain in autism and dyslexia and has written widely on these topics. She is keenly interested in how insights from neuroscience could be applied to education, and as a museum addict she is eager to explore the role of museums in life-long education. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society, a Fellow of the British Academy, a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences, a member of the German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina, and an Honorary Fellow of Newnham College, Cambridge. She is a Representative Trustee of the Museum nominated by The Royal Society.
Alderman Alison Gowman has been the Alderman for the Ward of Dowgate in the City of London since 2002. She is a solicitor and senior partner in DLA Piper UK LLP, specialising in real estate. She is a Trustee of Gresham College and of the Greenwich Foundation for the Old Royal Naval College as well as a Trustee of the Aldersgate Flame. Alderman Gowman is a Representative Trustee of the Museum nominated by the Court of Aldermen of the City of London. She is the Deputy Chairman of the Trustees and Chairman of the Museum’s Audit Committee.
Mr Richard Griffiths read Law at Cambridge before joining Farrer & Co. as an Articled Clerk in 1960. He became a Partner in 1967 and was Senior Partner from 1993 to 2000. Mr Griffiths is a founder member of the Solicitors’ Family Law Association (now ‘Resolution’) and was on the council of the Imperial Cancer Research Fund. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and a non-executive director of the London Cremation Company. Mr Griffiths was appointed a Life Trustee of the Museum in 1993 and Chairman in 1997. He stepped down as Chairman of the Board of Trustees in 2008 but remains a member of the board and is Chairman of the Museum’s Finance Committee.
Mr Niall Hobhouse is an art collector and writer on architectural and curatorial issues. He was a partner in Eyre and Hobhouse Ltd from 1978 to 1986 and later a partner in Hazlitt Gooden and Fox Ltd of St James’s, a leading dealer in Old Master paintings and drawings. He is a Trustee of the Canadian Centre for Architecture in Montreal and a member of their Collection, Programme and Research Committee. He served as a Trustee and Chairman of the Design and Development Committee of the Holburne Museum in Bath between 1999 and 2007 and as Chairman of their Executive Committee from 2003 to 2005. He was a Trustee of the Development Trust of the National Museums of Liverpool from 2004 to 2008 and a member of their Capital Projects Committee from 2005 to 2006. He was a Trustee of the Campaign for Museums until 2008, a Governor of the LSE from 2001, and a member of the Advisory Board for the Cities Programme, LSE from 1998-2008. He was appointed a Life Trustee of Sir John Soane’s Museum in 2007.
Dr Amin Jaffer received a degree in History and History of Art from the University of Toronto in 1990 and was awarded a PhD for his thesis on Furniture from British India by the V&A/Royal College of Art in 1995. Dr Jaffer was Senior Curator and Senior Fundraiser at the V&A until he joined Christie’s in 2007 to become their International Director of Asian Art. He has organized multiple exhibitions - among them 'Encounters: the Meeting of Asia and Europe' (2004) and Maharaja: the Splendour of India's Royal Courts' (2009) - and has an active international lecturing profile. His publications include Furniture from British India and Ceylon (2001), Luxury Goods from India (2002) and Made for Maharajas (2006).
Dr Jaffer is a Trustee of the UK Chapter of the World Monument Fund and of Soham For Kids. He is a Representative Trustee of the Museum, nominated by the Royal Society of Arts.
Dr Ian Jenkins, OBE, FSA is Senior Curator of Greek collections at the British Museum where he has worked since 1978. He is author of many books and research papers on Classical Archaeology and its modern reception, especially on the British Museum’s architectural Greek sculptures and, notably, those of the Parthenon. He leads the British Museum’s excavations at Knidos in western Turkey. He is a Corresponding Member of the German Archaeological Institute, an Honorary Member of the Archaeological Institute of America and a Vice-President of Bristol University’s Institute of Greece, Rome and the Classical Tradition. He is a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries and serves as their nominee on the Board of Trustees of the Soane Museum. He is a member of the Museum’s Audit Committee.
Mrs Molly Lowell Borthwick has worked for UK charities for over 20 years. She is also a Trustee of the Brunel Museum and the Tunbridge Wells International Music Festival and has previously managed the UK Education programme of The Prince’s Trust and served as Fundraising Director for the Inter-Action Social Enterprise Trust. From 2006 Molly was a Director of the Sir John Soane’s Museum Society. She is an active member of the Soane Development Board and is also a Director of the Sir John Soane’s Museum Foundation in the USA.
Sir Richard MacCormac CBE, PPRIBA, RA founded MJP Architects in 1972 where he was partner and then chairman until 2011. He has recently established a separate practice, MacCormac Architect. He has taught and lectured widely and has published articles on urban design and architectural theory. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and a Royal Academician, and was President of the Royal Institute of British Architects from 1991 to 1993. Sir Richard is a Representative Trustee of the Museum nominated by the Royal Academy of Arts. He serves on the Museum’s Buildings Committee.
Lady (Orna) Turner was a partner in the management consulting firm McKinsey & Company for many years and now chairs the consulting firm Eden McCallum. She is also a Non-Executive Director of HMV plc and of Royal Mail Group. Past Directorships include BUPA and Northern Foods plc. Since 2007 she has been Chair of the Soil Association which is a national charity campaigning for organic and sustainable food and farming; she is also a Trustee of Greenham Common Trust.