Compton Verney House Charity
(CVHC)

Compton Verney House Charity (CVHC) is governed by a Board of Trustees. The Board of Trustees determines policy and, together with senior staff at Compton Verney, sets the strategic direction of Compton Verney. It oversees the management of the gallery, with the Trustees acting as guardians of the public interest.

The Board decides on resource allocations, it represents Compton Verney externally, and monitors the organisation’s performance against agreed objectives.

Penny Egan, CVHC Chair

Penny took on the role of Chair in 2020 having recently retired as the Executive Director of the US-UK Fulbright Commission. She joined the Commission after stepping down as the Executive Director of the RSA where she was the first woman to have led the Society in its 250-year history. Prior to this, Penny was Programme Development Director at the RSA. Her early career included the posts of Press and Publicity Officer at the Crafts Council, Press Officer to the Prime Minister and Press Officer at the V&A Museum.

Penny has held several non executive roles. She is a lay Member of Council at the University of Reading. Previously she has been the Chair of the Museum of the Home a Lay Member of Council at the University of Warwick, Member of the Design Council, Trustee of DEMOS and Non-Executive Director of Wardour Publishing.

Penny received a CBE in 2013 in recognition of her contribution to international education. She is an honorary fellow of the Royal College of Art and the RSA.

Caroline Jones

Caroline Jones is Director & CEO of the Story Museum in Oxford which she has helped bring to life over the past 10 years in various roles, including a particularly memorable Paddington Bear.

Prior to this she was Development Director at the Royal Shakespeare Company and the Young Vic Theatre during their major capital redevelopments.

Caroline first learnt the hustle of arts fundraising as part of the founding team at the Roundhouse 25 years ago, where she also began a career-long commitment to enabling and exploiting creativity for social good (and for the sheer joy of it).

Helen Rose

Helen enjoyed a 30-year executive career working for many of the leading companies in the UK, successfully moving sectors and functional specialisms. With half her career in retail and hospitality businesses (Dixons, Safeway and Forte) and half in retail financial services (Lloyds Banking Group and TSB).

She held roles as a Finance Director and latterly as the Chief Operating Officer at TSB. She has extensive experience of leading transformational change. Helen began her career at Coopers and Lybrand where she qualified as a Chartered Accountant. Helen now balances a rich and varied portfolio as a Non-Executive Director (Greencore, a leading food manufacturer), Executive Coach, Trustee and Advisor.

Jon Sheaff

Jon is a Landscape Architect with over 25 years’ experience of developing and delivering strategy and design for the public realm and public open space. Jon has a degree in archaeology from Cambridge University and has been a Chartered Member of the Landscape Institute for over 20 years.

Following work in private practice, Jon worked as Commissions Manager for the Cardiff Bay Arts Trust.

Jon led Southwark Council’s Parks and Open Spaces department from 2001 to 2010, overseeing an investment of over £28 million in parks across the borough. Jon also created London’s first Park Trust at Potters Fields and new public open spaces at Burgess Park and Bermondsey Spa.

Returning to the private sector, Jon’s practice has developed award-winning natural capital and green infrastructure strategies for public and third sector clients and has led the restoration of a number of nationally significant public.

Jon was a member of the Heritage Lottery Fund’s Committee for London from 2012 to 2018 and a member of the Design Council CABE Built Environment Panel since 2013.

Lara Ratnaraja

Lara Ratnaraja is an independent Cultural Consultant who specialises in culture and diversity, innovation, leadership, collaboration, and cultural policy and placemaking within the cultural, HE and digital sectors.

She also co-produces a series of cultural leadership programmes for people from diverse backgrounds linked to geographical places and also curates a digital Conference called Hello Culture.

She has significant experience in both the application and implementation of cultural policy and strategy and the public sector framework within which these operate.

She has developed, managed, and delivered successful ERDF, ESF, ACE, AHRC bids, and programmes working within the public, HE, and commercial sectors.

.

Lydia Thomas

Lydia has spent the majority of her career in broadcasting, latterly for the BBC and the BBC Trust, the corporation’s former governing body. With wide-ranging interests in the arts, heritage and inclusion, she has both grant-making and fundraising experience including setting up the former BBC Wildlife Fund.

Lydia has held public appointments with Ofcom, as Chair of the Advisory Committee on Older and Disabled People; and the Big Lottery Fund as the Midlands representative on the England committee. She has served on advisory committees including the Wellcome Trust arts & science funding committee, the British Medical Association Patient Liaison Group and the National Trust Midlands & East Regional Advisory Group. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and a member of the Spinal Injuries Association.

Lydia is the Chair of the Nominations and Remuneration Committee.

Magnus Renfrew

Magnus is co-founder of ART SG, a major new art fair for Southeast Asia. In 2019, he co-founded the art fair – Taipei Dangdai – which has rapidly established itself as a key fixture on the international art calendar.

Magnus was founding director of Art Basel in Hong Kong – serving as one of three members of Art Basel’s global Executive Committee, and was founding director of the fair’s predecessor ART HK: Hong Kong International Art Fair, which inaugurated in 2008 and which has been widely recognised as repositioning Hong Kong as a centre for art and culture.

In 2017, Magnus’ book Uncharted Territory: Culture & Commerce in Hong Kong’s Art World was published by Penguin.

He has been recognized for his contribution by industry media and has been named twice in the ArtReview ‘Power 100’ as one of the 100 most influential figures in the art world. In 2013, he was honoured by the World Economic Forum as a Young Global Leader.

Mark Armstrong

A Chartered Surveyor who has worked in the public, private and charitable sectors dealing with a wide range of property assets and landholdings. At the National Trust in West Midlands Region he delivered operational performance, major conservation and commercial projects, led strategic development and complex land transactions for properties which welcomed 2.5 million visitors annually and led on innovative heritage acquisitions for instance the Backs to Backs in Birmingham.

He currently runs his own Heritage Management Consultancy providing a range of services to include; strategic asset property portfolio advice, the protection of heritage assets, project management for major grant aided and public/private partnership projects for clients such as the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust and the National Memorial Arboretum.

Mark is an HLF Mentor having worked on the resilience stream of funding to help small conservation charities develop strategic and business planning and after 13 years of service as a Trustee for the Avoncroft Museum of Historic Buildings, Mark was recently appointed Chairman.

Paul Smith

Paul is director of Oxford University Museum of Natural History.  Prior to this, he was head of the School of Geography, Earth & Environmental Sciences at the University of Birmingham but has worked in university museums for most of his career, in Cambridge, Copenhagen and at the University of Birmingham, where he was director of the Lapworth Museum of Geology.

He has wide-ranging research interests in the evolutionary origin of animals and the geology of Arctic areas, and has thirty years of expedition and field research experience in Greenland and Svalbard.  He was awarded the Polar Medal for outstanding achievement in Arctic research in 2017.

Paul also has research interests in the arts:science interface and the application of digital technologies to science museums, particularly in the areas of 3D visualisation and the evaluation of user experience. Much of this work is carried out in collaboration with Warwick Manufacturing Group at the University of Warwick.

Peter Wilson

Peter has a degree in Natural Sciences from Cambridge University. After two years working in industry he joined the Tate Gallery responsible for the planning of their estate. He later worked on Tate Gallery St Ives which opened in 1993, followed by Tate Gallery Liverpool Phase 2 in 1998 and culminating with the delivery of Tate Modern in 2000 and Tate Britain Centenary Development in 2001.

He continued to work on plans for the second phase of Tate Modern and an extension to Tate St Ives until he was appointed by the RSC as Transformation Project Director for their Stratford-upon-Avon theatres in 2005. He then became a freelance consultant specialising in advising on cultural buildings and from 2011 – 2017. He has advised on arts projects across the world.

He has been the Project Director for the Hall for Cornwall in Truro and Special Adviser to the Theatres Trust in the UK. He was awarded an OBE for services to museums in 2001 and is an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects.

Philip Bunt

Philip is a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales with over 40 years of experience in the UK and overseas in the accountancy profession and as a Chief Financial Officer or Chief Operating Officer in several businesses, charities and the public sector. He retired in 2023 from the role of Chief Operating Officer of UK Anti-Doping.

Philip has served as Vice-Chair of Governors of two schools where he also chaired the finance committees and was a trustee of the associated charities. He was Deputy Chair and Treasurer of the Campaign for Learning. Before being appointed at CVHC he was the honorary treasurer of an international development charity.

Philip is the Chair of the Finance, Audit and Risk Committee. He is also a trustee of Compton Verney Fund and the Dame Kelly Holmes Trust.

Ross Sleight

Ross is a seasoned digital strategist with 30 years of experience navigating the dynamic evolving landscape of digital technology. Passionate about understanding the interplay between technology, consumer behaviour, and business transformation, Ross has been at the forefront of digital innovation, founding six influential digital businesses and contributing to notable projects such as developing the first digital property for 10 Downing Street.

His wide expertise extends to advising global brands, government organisations, cultural institutions and charities. Currently serving as the Chief Strategy Officer at CI&T, Ross advises brands on crafting engaging digital experiences and beyond corporate endeavours, he dedicates time to support startups and cultural initiatives. With a diverse background spanning corporate, cultural, and entrepreneurial realms, Ross employs a holistic approach to digital transformation to craft digital strategies for success.

Sipho Ndlovu

Sipho is a Birmingham based Performance Artist, Writer & Workshop Facilitator who combines his practises to consult on youth engagement, deliver quality disability arts and celebrate communities.

Sipho has been working within the arts and culture sector for over a decade and his experiences have allowed him to represent West Midlands youth based perspectives in positions such Member Board of Directors of Culture Central, Poet Laureate at the University of Sheffield Faculty of Social Sciences and most recently, Compton Verney House Charity as a Trustee & Director.