President and Trustees

Meet our President and Board of Trustees

A Board of Trustees governs our charity, the Greenwich Foundation. They are responsible for overseeing the management of the Old Royal Naval College, its overarching strategy and the appointment of the Chief Executive.

President

HRH The Duke of Gloucester KG, GVCO
President

The Duke of Gloucester carries out a significant number of public duties, many as Patron, President or Fellow. He is involved in multiple charities related to architecture, construction and conservation. He was elected a corporate member of the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) in 1972 and is Royal Patron of the British Museum. The Duke is also President of several architectural preservation societies, including the Victorian Society and the National Churches Trust. He is Patron of the International Council on Monuments and Sites, UK National Committee, as well as of the Global Heritage Fund. He was appointed President of the Greenwich Foundation for the Old Royal Naval College in 2010.

Trustees

Sir Stuart Etherington
Chair

Sir Stuart Etherington is Chair of The Oversight Trust, an organisation which oversees the distribution of unclaimed assets. He also Chairs the National Centre for Social Research and the board of the Centre for Charity Effectiveness at City University. He was Chief Executive of NCVO from 1994 – 2019. Prior to that he was Chief Executive of the Royal National Institute for Deaf People, a major UK charity.

He is a former member of the Royal Institute of International Affairs, a former Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, a Patron of the Dickens in the Borough 2012 project, and a member of the Dickens Fellowship and the Nelson Society. Stuart was knighted in 2010 for services to the voluntary sector.
Vice-Admiral Sir Adrian Johns KCB CBE DL
Trustee

Adrian served for 35 years in the Royal Navy as a helicopter pilot and flying instructor. He commanded five times at sea, ranging from a minesweeper to HMS OCEAN. He was Head of the Fleet Air Arm for five years and retired from the Navy as Second Sea Lord and Commander-in-Chief Naval Home Command in 2008. He was is subsequently appointed Governor and Commander-in-Chief, Gibraltar 2009-2013. He is a member of the Senior Salaries Review Body and a non-executive member of the Civil Service Pensions Board. He is Deputy Lieutenant of Greater London and is Deputy Chairman of the National Museum of the Royal Navy and Patron of a number of Veterans’ Associations.
Nicola Briggs
Trustee

Nicola joined the National Trust as Regional Director for the London and South East in 2014. Before that she held several senior leadership roles in the media, commercial companies and NGOs. She was Head of News at the Press Association before becoming News Editor and Deputy Editor at Express Newspapers. More recently, she worked at Lexis Nexis as Editorial and Publishing Director and then Content and Product Development Director, taking a lead role in the company’s transformation into a leading digital content provider. Her most recent role was Senior Director at Amnesty International.
Andrew Clark
Trustee

Andrew is Chairman of Purcell, a practice of architects, designers and heritage leaders. He has spent most of his professional life working on historic buildings and their settings – repairing, conserving, adapting, and extending places of historic significance. He is currently working on some of the most important historic buildings in London, from Battersea Power Station to the Palace of Westminster. He has worked for a range of clients including private individuals, museum and galleries, charitable organisations and Central Government advising on how they can transform the buildings in their care.
Jamaria Kong
Trustee

Jamaria is a Managing Director at TowerBrook Capital Partners. Prior to TowerBrook, she was an advisor to both private equity and corporate clients in mergers & acquisitions, value creation and business innovation. She has previously been Associate Director with Ernst & Young’s Transaction Advisory Services and then Strategist / Managing Partner at Hewlett Packard Enterprise’s Advisory and Consulting Services. She is also a Trustee of Bede House in Southwark.
Eric Reynolds
Trustee

Eric Reynolds is Founding Director of Urban Space Management, leading their work at Trinity Buoy Wharf. Eric has been involved in numerous urban regeneration schemes and the creation of visitor attractions since the early 1970’s, many including the practical re-use of historic buildings. He acts as a regeneration advisor across the country, is former Chairman of the London Safer Cities initiative and is a director and member of several other voluntary bodies. He was Chairman of Leeside Regeneration and sat on English Heritage Working Group 5 inputting to the “Power of the Place: the Future of the Historic Environment” review. In 2012 he was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award by Regeneration and Renewal Magazine. He is a trustee of several charitable organisations including the Royal Museums Greenwich, an Honorary Member, RIBA and a Freeman of the Company of Watermen and Lightermen. He is a Chairman of SAVE and a Trustee of Royal Rowbarge Gloriana.
Pommy Sarwal
Trustee

Pommy was a former corporate finance partner at Deloitte and the secretary to the Review Board for non competitive government contracts mainly in connection with defence contracts. He is currently also a trustee of the Chatham Historic Dockyard, Chairman of Master Ropemakers Limited and Vice Chairman of Hybrid Air Vehicles Limited.

His former roles included being a director of The Port of London Authority, British Waterways, Christie Group plc and Hyde Housing Association and Chairman of Martlet Homes and Venners Limited. He is Chartered Accountant, a member of the Securities Institute and Sloan Fellow of The London Business School.
Desmond Shawe-Taylor
Trustee

Desmond taught for many years at the University of Nottingham and was Director of Dulwich Picture Gallery 1996-2005, when he was appointed Surveyor of The Queen’s Pictures. He has written extensively on English eighteenth-century portraiture. Recently he has curated a series of exhibitions at the Queen’s Gallery in Edinburgh and London, dealing with Dutch and Flemish 17th-century art. He was also lead curator of a Queen’s Gallery exhibition celebrating the tercentenary of the arrival of the Hanoverian dynasty. His most recent project has been co-curating Charles I: King and Collector, at the Royal Academy, the first collaboration of its kind for Royal Collection Trust.
Tom Wipperman
Trustee

Tom is the Strategic Finance Director at the Ministry of Defence, where he oversees its £50bn per year budget that delivers the government’s defence policy, including support to Ukraine. He has spent most of his 15 year civil service career in HM Treasury, where he held a number of policy roles including in financial services policy, banking reform and legislation, but predominantly in public spending policy covering matters as diverse as defence and intelligence, local government finance and taxation, social care and freeports. He led HM Treasury’s support to local government services during the pandemic. In a previous period in the Ministry of Defence Tom led Defence Nuclear Strategy and Performance. As well as this trusteeship, he is a Lay Advisor to the Forces In Mind Trust, which funds research to support service personnel in their transition to civilian life.
Laura Whyte
Trustee

Laura’s executive career was spent with John Lewis where she served on the Management Board for over ten years, firstly as Registrar and latterly as HR Director. She also founded and, for a number of years, chaired the John Lewis Foundation and was a Trustee of the Ebony Horse Club. Laura is currently a Non-Executive Director at Macfarlane Group PLC and Capital and Regional PLC and chairs the Remuneration Committees at both organisations. She is also a Non Executive Director at the British Horse Racing Authority, a member of their Diversity and Inclusivity in Racing Group and Chair of Respect in Racing.
Duncan Wilson OBE
Trustee

Duncan Wilson OBE has been Chief Executive of Historic England since its formation in 2015. Previously he was CE of Alexandra Palace and Park, and before that CE of the Old Royal Naval College and the Somerset House. He is a chartered accountant and has a post-graduate degree in European Archaeology from the University of Oxford. Earlier in his career he worked at HM Treasury and the then Department of National Heritage. He was awarded an OBE for services to heritage in 2007. His interests include classical singing, and restoring old buildings. He has three children – and two dogs.