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Four new appointments to Wellcome’s Board of Governors

Four leaders with significant experience across the finance, advertising, NGO and banking sectors have been appointed to our Board of Governors. 

Images of new Wellcome governors (clockwise from top right) Richard Gillingwater, Cilla Snowball, Elhadj As Sy and Amelia Fawcett
Wellcome's new governors: (clockwise from top right) Richard Gillingwater, Cilla Snowball, Elhadj As Sy and Amelia Fawcett.
Credit: Wellcome

The Board of Governors is a core part of our governance structure and the members are ultimately responsible for Wellcome’s activities.

Amelia Fawcett, a former investment banker and lawyer, has a career spanning financial services, media and telecommunications, investment management and government. In addition to 20 years at Morgan Stanley, she has extensive board experience including at the Guardian Media Group, The Prince of Wales’s Charitable Foundation, the UK Treasury and the Court of the Bank of England.  Currently, she is the lead director of State Street Corporation in the US and Chairman of Kinnevik AB in Sweden. Amelia will join the board in September.

Richard Gillingwater is currently the Chair of SSE, the renewable energy and networks group, and Janus Henderson, a global asset manager. After a career in finance, he set up and ran UK Government Investments, created to manage the Government’s state-owned businesses, and chaired the UK’s development finance business, CDC, investing in Africa and Asia. He has also served as Dean of Cass Business School and as Chair of the Open University and has wide board experience. Richard will join the Wellcome board in September. He will also chair our Investment Committee.

Cilla Snowball has had a long career in advertising, including 26 years at the creative agency AMV BBDO, where she was Group CEO and Group Chairman and pivotal in making it one of the most successful advertising agencies in the UK. She has chaired the Women’s Business Council, acted as a trustee of Comic Relief, and is a Non-Executive Director at the property investment and development company Derwent London plc. Cilla will join the board in September. 

Elhadj As Sy is the Secretary General of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC), the world’s largest humanitarian network. He has over 30 years’ experience of leadership in the humanitarian and development sector having previously served at a senior level at UNICEF, UNAIDS, UNDP, and the Global Fund to fight AIDS, TB and Malaria. He has served on the board of several international organisations including the Roll Back Malaria Partnership, the Global Preparedness Monitoring Board, Kofi Annan Foundation and the Global Commission on Climate Adaptation.  As will join the board in January 2020 at the end of his tenure at IFRC.

Eliza Manningham-Buller said: "These are crucial appointments for Wellcome and I’m extremely pleased by the depth and breadth of experience we have in our new Governors – ranging from finance to advertising to the world of international NGOs and much more."

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