About >
Dr David Dibosa is Director of Research and Interpretation at Tate where he leads the development of a thriving research community within and beyond the organisation. David also supports Tate’s interpretation team in engaging audiences in the galleries as well as online. He is a key representative of Tate across the museum and academic sectors.
Prior to this role, David was Reader of Museology at University of the Arts London, having taught at universities in London for more than twenty years and regularly lecturing around the world. He is co-author of Post-Critical Museology: Theory and Practice in the Art Museum (Routledge, 2013). He trained as a curator, after receiving his first degree from Girton College, Cambridge. He was awarded his PhD in Art History from Goldsmiths College, University of London.
Alongside being Chair of Trustees at Whitechapel Gallery, David is also a Trustee of Art Fund. David’s television appearances include BBC One’s Big Painting Challenge, in which he was a judge. He is also currently a presenter for Art on the BBC, showing on BBC 4.
Erin Bell is a consultant and an executive coach with a particular focus on the arts. Prior to this she worked for over twenty-five years in global financial services (investment management), at The Capital Group, concentrating on investment and development, and before then, in comics and fashion. Erin has been involved with The Whitechapel Gallery in a variety of areas – The Commissioning Council, Art Icon Committee, as well as being a co-sponsor of the Summer Boot Camps. She is also a member of the Council of the Serpentine Gallery, where she sits on the Exhibitions Committee, and a patron of other arts’ organisations. Erin has a BSc from LSE and received her MBA from London Business School.
Jeremy is Head of Investments, UK & Ireland at Valor Real Estate Partners (VREP). VREP is a Private Equity firm based in London, with over €3bn in Assets Under Management. Prior to joining VREP, Jeremy worked at Lazard in their Mergers & Acquisitions division, based out of New York City. He was appointed a Trustee of Whitechapel Gallery in 2024. An art collector, he has exhibited works from his collection around the world, including at the Musee d’Orsay in Paris, the Sculpture Centre in New York and the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles. Jeremy has a BA from the University of Pennsylvania, where he graduated with Honors in Philosophy, Politics and Economics.
Myfanwy’s executive career was in public finance – as Corporate Director of Finance at Harrow Council and subsequently Managing Director of Corporate Services at the House of Commons. She is now an experienced Non-Executive Director and Trustee, with a portfolio that covers pensions, housing, and culture in the public and not-for-profit sectors.
Myfanwy is a Board Member and Chair of the Audit Committee at Nest, the government backed pension scheme for auto-enrolment, with 12m members and £30bn of assets under management; Board Member and Chair of the Audit and Risk Committee at The Pensions Ombudsman; Director of a pensions administration company; and Senior Independent Board Member at Ocean Housing Group. She is also a Trustee of Shelter – the housing and homelessness charity, Newlyn Art Gallery in Cornwall, and an independent library. She was previously a Trustee of The Photographers’ Gallery for 7 years and sat on two Tate committees.
Nick co-founded and owns Flat Brew Limited, the maker of award-winning coffee spreads. Prior to founding Flat Brew, Nick launched a number of entrepreneurial ventures in the retail and restaurant sectors, having previously worked in sales at JP Morgan; retail strategy at Monitor Company; and business development at Starbucks Coffee International earlier in his career.
Nick has worked with leading theatre and cultural institutions in the UK on issues related to strategic positioning and audience development, with a particular focus on engaging minority audiences. He served as a trustee at Kiln Theatre; currently serves at The National Theatre of Ireland and Sadlers Wells; and is an investor in West End theatrical productions.
Nick is also actively engaged in the education sector where he serves as a trustee for Westside School and Alternative Provision Challenge Trust, both organisations dedicated to meeting the educational needs of excluded students. Nick is a graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Business School.
Debashis Dey is an international M&A and finance partner in the Global Capital Markets practice of White & Case LLP, an international law firm. He has three decades of experience helping domestic and international clients to execute a spectrum of complex cross-border transactions. Debashis has a seasoned focus on European Financial Services and Middle Eastern based corporates but is also active in a number of other sectors including private equity, structured finance, Islamic finance and non-performing loans. He is a frequent advisor to boards of corporates and financial institutions.
Debashis has been a resident in East London since the late 1990’s and has been an avid observer of culture, art and cuisine. He is passionate about contemporary art and always seeks to meet artists in their local environments where possible.
Anya Gallaccio is a British artist, who creates sitespecific, minimalist installations and often works with organic matter (including chocolate, sugar, flowers and ice). Her use of organic materials results in natural processes of transformation and decay, meaning that Gallaccio is unable to predict the result of her installations. Something which at the start of an exhibition may be pleasurable, such as the scent of flowers or chocolate, would inevitably become increasingly unpleasant over time. The timely and site-specific nature of her work make it notoriously difficult to document. Her work therefore challenges the traditional notion that an art object or sculpture should essentially be a monument within a museum or gallery. Instead her work often lives through the memory of those that saw and experienced it – or the concept of the artwork itself.
Jen Holdsworth is an art market professional with over two decades of senior experience at the intersection of contemporary art, philanthropy and ethical cultural strategy. For 18 years she worked exclusively with the artist Banksy, establishing Pest Control Office Ltd, and serving as Group Managing Director.
As of 2025, Jen works broadly across the art world, working with artists, individuals and institutions. She is committed to art as a shared civic act, and her work centres on balancing financial sustainability with principled, radical and genuinely equitable cultural production, ensuring that art remains open and accessible to all.
William Mann is an architect and writer. He studied in Cambridge and Harvard before practising in London and Flanders. Since 2001 he has been a director of Witherford Watson Mann Architects, based in East London. The studio’s work focuses on the physical continuity of buildings, and the social transformation of cities and institutions. Their projects include the transformation of the Whitechapel Gallery, with Robbrecht en Daem Architecten, Gent; a house within the ruins of Astley Castle, for the Landmark Trust, for which they won the RIBA Stirling Prize 2013; a new theatre for Nevill Holt Opera and the transformation of the Courtauld Institute of Art. William has written for a variety of architectural publications on the edge landscapes of London and Flanders, on urban renewal and social change, and on the friction of time in the building process
Marie McPartlin is Director of Somerset House Studios, a space for artistic experimentation across disciplines in central London. Developed under Marie’s leadership since its inception in 2015, the Studios has supported over 120 artists to develop new creative projects and collaborations through a programme of residencies, research and commissions. Residents have included Beatrice Dillon, Gaika, Hannah Perry, Imran Perretta, Keiken, Onyeka Igwe and Tai Shani.
A recipient of a Paul Hamlyn Breakthrough Award for exceptional cultural entrepreneurship in 2009, she has twice served as a festival director, and under ACE’s Cultural Leadership Programme, was appointed Associate Programmer, Contemporary Music at the Barbican. As a freelancer specialising in music, visual art, performance and new technologies, she has previously worked with Create London, Frieze and the National Trust.
Curator, art historian and writer, Frances Morris was Director Tate Modern from 2016-2023. Frances has made many exhibitions and publications, including acclaimed retrospectives of Louise Bourgeois, Yayoi Kusama, and Agnes Martin, As Director of Collections, International Art from 2006 to 2016 Frances led the transformation of Tate’s International Collection, strategically broadening and diversifying its international reach and representation, as well as bringing photography, moving image and live art into the institution for the first time through acquisitions, displays and exhibitions.
Frances is currently a Distinguished visiting Professor at Ewha Womens’ University, Seoul, S.Korea, 2024-2026. She is a Fellow of the London Centre for the Humanities, an Honorary Fellow of King’s College Cambridge, and Jesus College Cambridge, and has recently been awarded a D. Lit from the Courtauld Institute of Art. Frances also serves on advisory boards to a number of international museums including Mori Art Museum Tokyo, MNAC Bucuresti and Serralves, Porto.
Caleb Azumah Nelson is a British-Ghanaian writer and photographer living in South East London. He was shortlisted for the BBC National Short Story Award 2020 for his story “Pray” and was selected by The Observer as one of the Best 10 Debut Novelists of 2021.
His first novel, Open Water, was published by Viking (UK) and by Grove Atlantic (US) in 2021. It has since been longlisted for the Desmond Elliot prize and the Gordon Burn prize, shortlisted for the Waterstones Book of the Year 2021, and won the Costa First Novel Award 2021. In February 2022 it was selected as Waterstones Paperback of the Month and was longlisted for the 2022 Dylan Thomas Prize.
As a screenwriter and director, Caleb is currently developing an original series with Element, a feature with Heyday and Film4, and recently wrote and directed a short film with BBC Film. While at MacDowell, he worked on a book of photography and essays formed from a research trip to Ghana to accompany his second novel Small Worlds.
Bimpe Nkontchou is a lawyer and wealth adviser, with over 35 years’ experience in (Nigeria and the UK) with an established wealth management practice based in London, focusing on African entrepreneurs and their families.
Bimpe is a keen enthusiast and ‘activist collector’ of African art. She views African art as an important legacy of the African continent, as well as being a valuable asset class and she contributes regularly by supporting, advocating for and promoting the creative culture on the African continent.
Bimpe is a trustee of the Yinka Shonibare Foundation and G.A.S. Foundation in Nigeria, a founding member of the African Art Acquisitions Committee of the Centre Pompidou in France, an adviser and board member of the Fondation MAM in Cameroon and she has been a member of the Director’s Patron Circle of the Whitechapel Gallery since 2021.
Ian Pleace chairs the Gallery’s Finance & Operations Committee, having joined the Board in October 2021. He qualified as a Chartered Accountant with Deloitte, where he had a 17-year career, focused on audit and corporate finance assignments for a range of clients in the publishing and media sectors. Ian has acted as the Director of Finance for BBC Nations & Regions, Goldsmiths’ College, the University of Roehampton and, currently, the Edward James Foundation (which includes West Dean College, a leader in the fields of fine arts, design, craft and conservation). He serves on the boards of i2 Media Research, Cognivate Rehab and the National Tramway Museum at Crich in Derbyshire. He has previously acted as an independent member of the Audit Panel of the London Borough of Lewisham.
Tom was in the finance sector for 30 years, advising entrepreneurial companies in a variety of business sectors, and now devotes his time to not-for-profit organisations, principally in the arts sector.
He is treasurer and arts adviser to Cockayne – Grants for the Arts, a foundation which funds performing and creative arts in London; is trustee of The Line, East London’s public art walk from the Olympic Park to the O2; and is trustee of the Braintree Museum and Warner Textile Archive.
He also volunteers teaching English to asylum seekers. Tom has a degree in economics and history of art. His interests include twentieth century British painting and sculpture, architecture, making and collecting ceramics, gardens and food. He lives in Stepney, East London.
Karen Seward is an accomplished global leader and a lawyer. Renowned for her strategic business expertise, her empowering leadership style and her profound commitment to diversity and inclusion, she now brings her experience and insights to the Gallery and the communities we serve.
Passionate about the galvanising power of art, Karen believes art is for everyone and wants art to be a part of everyone’s life to help bring us closer together. She will represent our values and culture alongside other members of our Board and, as an East End local, is especially committed to community outreach.
