RSC Chair

Shriti Vadera is the Chair of Prudential plc and was previously the chair of Santander UK, a Director of AstraZeneca and Senior Independent Director of BHP.  She has over 35 years of experience spanning public and private sectors, in the UK and internationally.

Shriti started her career as an investment banker for 14 years with a particular focus on emerging markets. She joined the Council of Economic Advisers, HM Treasury in 1999, leading on policy areas for business, productivity, private finance, and international development issues. From 2007-2009 she was a Minister and best known for leading the UK Government’s response to the Financial Crisis. She was a key architect of its pioneering bank recapitalisation and funding plan in 2008 and helped design the outcomes of the G20 London Summit in 2009. After leaving government, Shriti served as an adviser to the Presidency of the G20 and to governments and investors around the world.

Shriti was born in Uganda and went to school in Uganda and India before moving to the UK to continue her education. She read Philosophy, Politics and Economics at Oxford University.

 

Catherine Mallyon has been Executive Director, a Governor and a Board member of the Royal Shakespeare Company since 2012.

Read catherine's biography

Andrew is a cultural consultant, broadcaster and an influential champion of disabled people. He belongs to the first generation of disabled presenters of British television, becoming a pioneering documentary film-maker and later, the first wheelchair-user to run a major UK arts venue.

A National Council member of Arts Council England, a trustee of Welsh National Opera and BAFTA, Andrew previously served on the boards of the Arts Council of Wales and digital arts agency The Space. He also chairs the British Film Institute Disability Screen Advisory Group. In 2020 Andrew co-founded the UK Disability Arts Alliance, #WeShallNotBeRemoved, co-authored the Seven Inclusive Principles for cultural recovery and became chair of Arts Council England's Disability Advisory Group. 

As the UK Government’s first Disability Champion for Arts & Culture, Andrew established the role as a powerful campaigning platform for greater inclusion across the arts, museums and film. Now a prolific writer and speaker, his consultancy supports major new cultural infrastructure such as the University of Oxford Schwarzman Centre for the Humanities and Coventry City of Culture. 

Amanda is the Founder Director of Inc Arts UK, which advocates for the creative, contractual and economic rights of the UK’s ethnically diverse arts sector workforce.  Previous Equalities, Diversity and Inclusion roles include her leadership of the BBC’s recruitment and awareness campaign for the launch of BBC Radio 1Xtra, and as Head of Communications for Directors UK, Amanda was responsible for overseeing the UK’s first industry-wide research into gender diversity in TV directing.

A former broadcaster in BBC news and current affairs teams, Amanda’s previous roles include Development Producer for BBC Arts (TV) and BBC Radio and Music, as well as Campaigns management for BBC Education.  Recognition for her work in EDI advocacy and campaigns include CRE Race in the Media, Royal Television Society, MIND Mental Health in the Media and the Stephen Lawrence Foundation awards.

Amanda’s advocacy includes representations to UK and European Parliaments on behalf of cultural and creative sector workers, and UK-wide campaigns on anti-racist action in the arts and cultural sector.  Amanda is on the Arts and Culture Strategy Group for the COVID-19 London Government Task Force, the advisory board for the UK Coalition for Cultural Diversity, and the advisory board for Sheffield University’s COVID-19 culture and arts recovery project.

Amanda has been a trustee of Film London since 2016, serving on the FLAMIN visual arts committee, as well as the communications and public affairs and audience development working groups; she is a trustee of Intermission Youth and was the inaugural chair of Parents and Carers in Performance Arts in 2017. Amanda is Director of London Short Film Festival, is an RSA Fellow, and a Clore Fellow.

Winsome’s stage plays include Rockets and Blue Lights (Manchester Royal Exchange Theatre), Glutathione (Young Vic Theatre), The Principles of Cartography (The Bush Theatre), Tituba (Hampstead Theatre), Cleaning Up (For Clean Break at Oval House Theatre), Taken (For Clean Break at Oval House Theatre), IDP (Tricycle Theatre), The Stowaway (Play for young people, Plymouth Theatre), One Under (Tricycle Theatre), Beg Borrow or Steal (Kuumba Community Arts Centre), Water (Tricycle Theatre), Mules (Royal Court Theatre Upstairs and Clean Break Theatre), Can you Keep a Secret? (Connections at Royal National Theatre), A Rock in Water (Royal Court Theatre), Leave Taking (Liverpool Playhouse Theatre, National Theatre, Belgrade Theatre Coventry and Lyric theatre, Hammersmith), A Heroes Welcome (Royal Court Theatre Upstairs), The Wind of Change (Half Moon Theatre) and Picture Palace (Womens Theatre Group). Radio plays include Leave Taking (Radio 4), Singin’ and Swingin’ and Gettin’ Merry Like Christmas (Adapted from autobiography by Maya Angelou for Radio 4), Clean Trade (Radio 4), Lazarus (Radio 3), Her Father’s Daughter (Radio 4), Let Them Call it Jazz (adapted from Jean Rhys’ short story, Radio 4), Indiana (adapted from novel by George Sand), The Dinner Party (Radio 4), Something Borrowed (Radio 4) and Water (Radio 4). She co-wrote the screenplay Bitter Harvest.

Clare is CEO of Watershed a home for Cultural Cinema, talent development and creative technology in Bristol, UK. She works with industry, academic and creative partners from around the world to champion inclusion, support talent and develop new ideas. 

Clare is a Visiting Professor at University of the West of England. She is Chair of Emma Rice's Wise Children, and also a Trustee of British Council.

 

Mark is a Chartered Accountant who worked at PricewaterhouseCoopers for 36 years, primarily within the Audit and Risk practice. He was a Partner in the firm for 24 years through to 2021, was the Chairman of the Midlands Practice from 2008 to 2015 and then acted as the COO of PwC’s UK Assurance practice from 2017 to 2021.

Mark was also a board member of Marketing Birmingham / West Midlands Growth Company for seven years, where he chaired the Audit Committee, and he is now the Chair of the Audit, Risk and Compliance committee of the West Midlands Combined Authority.

Mark has a long standing interest and involvement with the arts sector having been a board member of the Birmingham Hippodrome from 2009 to 2016, including being a member of their Audit and Nominations Committees. He is also a patron of The Old Vic, the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and Birmingham Royal Ballet.

Ian joined our board in November 2013. He also sits on the board of the Birmingham Royal Ballet and of the Belarus Free Theatre based in London.

He spent his professional life in broadcasting. From  2011 to 2015 Ian was Controller of Current Affairs and News Operations, part of the network team at the commercial broadcaster ITV. Before that he was responsible for current affairs and ITV's regional news output.

He joined the BBC in his early career, and Carlton Studios from 1994-2000, where he became Managing Director. Then he joined ITV Central and was Director of Regional Production before becoming Controller of ITV Regions and Current Affairs, 2009-2011.

He has held numerous key regional appointments including President of Birmingham Chamber of Commerce and Industry 2004-2005 (Vice President, 2002-2004); Chairman of Birmingham Repertory Theatre 2005-2013, Director of Birmingham Hippodrome Theatre 2005-2009, Chairman, Marketing Birmingham 2004-2009, and Chairman, Birmingham City Pride 2001-2004.

His directorships have included West Midlands Life 1999-2003, Director of Birmingham City University 2005-2009, Fair Cities Birmingham 2005-2007 and Midland Heart Housing Associations 2007-2009.

In 1987 he won a BAFTA Award for Best Arts Programme for A Simple Man, a TV ballet on life of LS Lowry. More recent programmes he has commissioned have received Royal Television Society and Broadcasting Press Guild awards, and in 2013 the Peabody Award in the United States together with an International Emmy.

Ayanna is a Regents Professor of English at Arizona State University, and the Director of the Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies (ACMRS). She is the author of Blackface (Bloomsbury, 2021), Shakespeare in the Theatre: Peter Sellars (Arden Bloomsbury, 2018), Teaching Shakespeare with Purpose: A Student-Centred Approach, co-authored with Laura Turchi (Arden Bloomsbury, 2016), Passing Strange: Shakespeare, Race, and Contemporary America (Oxford University Press, 2011), and Performing Race and Torture on the Early Modern Stage (Routledge, 2008). She wrote the new introduction for the revised Arden3 Othello (Arden, 2016), and is the editor of The Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare and Race (Cambridge University Press, 2021), Weyward Macbeth: Intersections of Race and Performance (Palgrave, 2010), and Colorblind Shakespeare: New Perspectives on Race and Performance (Routledge, 2006). She is currently collaborating with Curtis Perry on the Arden4 edition of Titus Andronicus.

Thompson is a Shakespeare Scholar in Residence at The Public Theatre in New York. She currently chairs the Council of Scholars at Theatre for a New Audience in Brooklyn, NY, serves on the Board of Play On Shakespeare, and previously served on the Board for Woolly Mammoth Theatre in Washington, DC.

She was the 2018-19 President of the Shakespeare Association of America and was one of Phi Beta Kappa’s Visiting Scholars for 2017-2018. From 2015-2017, Thompson served as a member of the Board of Directors for the Association of Marshall Scholars.

Mark became President and Chief Executive Officer of The New York Times Company in November 2012. Since that time, he has directed the Company’s strategy and presided over an expansion of its digital and global operations.

Prior to that, he served as Director-General of the BBC from 2004, where he ensured that it remained a leading innovator with the launch of services like the BBC iPlayer.  Mark first joined the BBC in 1979 as a production trainee. He left for two years in 2002 to become Chief Executive Officer of Channel 4 Television before returning in 2004 as Director-General.

In autumn 2012, he was Visiting Professor of Rhetoric and the Art of Public Persuasion at the University of Oxford.

His book, Enough Said: What’s Gone Wrong with the Language of Politics? is based on the lectures he gave there and was published in both the UK and US in September 2016.

Mark Thompson was educated at Stonyhurst College and Merton College Oxford.  In his teens, he lived near Stratford-upon-Avon and has since been a regular visitor to the RSC.

Liz qualified as a solicitor in 1989 and became a partner at Mishcon de Reya in 1998, before moving to Clintons and leading the firm’s Family practice, with over 23 years’ experience in dealing with both financial cases (including pre and post-nuptial agreements) and work relating to children. Liz acts for clients from all walks of life, with a particular expertise in dealing with high net worth complex financial cases involving businesses and trusts, often with an international dimension.

Liz was part of the original team that acted for Diana, Princess of Wales in her divorce. She has an established reputation for dealing with high profile clients from the sports, entertainment and media fields and their spouses. Liz also acted for both Karen Parlour in respect of the widely reported landmark case, and for Slavica Ecclestone.

Liz is a collaboratively trained lawyer and member of the Central London Collaborative Forum. She has a wide range of alternative dispute resolution skills to assist in the resolution of difficult family disputes without involving the courts.

Liz is also a fellow of the International Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers.

Lucy is the Executive Committee member and Head of Regulatory Compliance for HSBC UK Bank, responsible for overseeing the commercial, retail, wealth and private banking operations of HSBC in the UK. In that role, she was the first senior executive to relocate from London to Birmingham in 2015, ahead of the opening of the bank’s new head office there.  She still lives locally with her family and is a strong advocate for the region.

Lucy joined HSBC in June 2013 from Prudential plc where she was the Director of Group Compliance. Prior to that, she was Head of Compliance at Aviva Life UK. Her earlier career included a range of roles over some years at the Financial Services Authority, in the Markets Division and Retail Supervision, and managing ABN AMRO’s Government Affairs team in Brussels. 

She has been a Trustee of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra since May 2016 and serves on their audit and finance committee.  She is an outgoing Trustee of the Institute of Business Ethics, having served on its Board since 2015.

Lucy has been a committed attendee at the RSC since childhood – something she now passionately shares with her own family – and has been a Full Member since 2013 and an Associate Member from 2005.

Lucy is joining the RSC Board, having been a governor since 2017.  She will also serve on the Audit Committee.

Lord Andrew Adonis
George Alagiah OBE
Sir David Bell
Anita Bhalla OBE
Elizabeth Boissevain
Lord Carrington DL
Bruce Kovner 
Professor Ruru Li
Dame Hilary Mantel DBE
Sandie Okoro
Patsy Rodenburg OBE
Professor Jim Shapiro
Sue Stapely
David Tennant
Dame Harriet Walter DBE
Mike Wright

Sir Geoffrey Cass

Lady Anderson 
Charles Flower 
Sir Stanley Wells

Neil Benson OBE 
Philip Bermingham
David Burbidge CBE
Michael Crystal QC 
Tony Hales CBE 
Sara Harrity MBE 
Martin Iredale
Ian Laing
Dr Douglas McPherson
Charlotte Heber Percy 
Roger Pringle
Telfer Saywell 
Lord Willoughby de Broke  
Stratford Town Mayor 
Chairman, Stratford-on-Avon District Council 
The Director, Shakespeare Institute 
The Chief Executive, Shakespeare Birthplace Trust

Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall (Chairman)
George Alagiah
Miranda Curtis
Gregory Doran
Nigel Hugill (ex officio)
Catherine Mallyon
Sir Anthony Seldon
Mike Wright

Mark Smith (Chairman)
Andrew Clayton
Jane Whitlock
Lucy Williams