Sir Ian Blatchford was appointed Director and Chief Executive of the Science Museum Group from 1 November 2010 and combined this with the role of Director of the Science Museum from December 2010. The national museum group oversees the Science Museum in London, the National Railway Museum in York, the National Science and Media Museum in Bradford, the Science and Industry Museum in Manchester and Locomotion in Shildon.
Previously Sir Ian was Deputy Director of the Victoria and Albert Museum, London from December 2004, having joined the museum in April 2002 as Director of Finance and Resources. He started his career in the City, working at the Bank of England and the merchant bankers Barclays de Zoete Wedd, before joining the Arts Council, where he was Deputy Finance Director. He then joined the marketing and design agency Cricket Communications as Financial Controller before becoming Director of Finance at the Royal Academy of Arts in 1996.
Sir Ian read law at Mansfield College, Oxford and holds an MA in Renaissance studies from Birkbeck College, University of London. He is also a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants.
Sir Ian has been President of the Royal Literary Fund since November 2020. He is also a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries. He was Chairman of the National Museum Directors’ Council from 2017–2021 and was Chairman of the Governors of De Montfort University from 2011–2018. Sir Ian was awarded a Knighthood in the 2019 New Year Honours for services to Cultural Education.
GROUP EXECUTIVE
The Group Executive is accountable to the Director and forms the senior management team for the Science Museum Group. This team is responsible for resource allocation, leading strategic management, developing the cultural content and programmes and sustaining Group values.
The members of the Group Executive are:
Group exec
Shri arrived at the Science Museum Group in November 2019 as its Director for Finance and Corporate Services, joining from the Home Office where he was the Interim Finance Director for the Borders, Immigration and Citizenship System.
Prior to joining SMG, Shri worked as a Senior Civil Servant across a variety of finance and performance roles at the Ministry of Justice. A self-confessed ‘data geek’, Shri is also a non-executive board member for Historic England’s Audit and Risk Assurance Committee.
Shri became Chief Operating Officer for the Science Museum Group in November 2021. In this role, Shri has oversight of operations and resources across all sites, including Corporate Services (Finance, ICT, Legal, Procurement, Governance), Learning, People and Culture, One Collection Programme, Commercial, and Communications.
Peter Dickinson is Director of Communications for the Science Museum Group. He has responsibility for press and marketing, social media, customer relationship management and visitor insight and led the rebranding of the Group’s five museums with a shared visual identity.
Prior to joining the Science Museum Group in 2013, Peter was Head of Communications at Sport England, where he worked on the Olympic and Paralympic legacy and the development of the This Girl Can campaign to promote women’s participation in sport.
Before that, he amassed over a decade’s experience in the media, principally at Sky News and the BBC. He sits on the Board of the Exhibition Road Cultural Group as Chair of its Communications Group, which promotes London’s home of arts and science through Discover South Kensington.
Sarita joined the Science Museum Group as Director of People and Culture in September 2018, with group-wide responsibility for leading and delivering people and cultural change strategy to support the Group’s strategic ambitions. Her remit includes leadership of the People and Culture, Volunteering, Corporate Information and Safety teams across the group.
Sarita’s HR experience has spanned a range of sectors, including higher education, culture, charity and commercial. Prior to joining the Science Museum, Sarita worked as Director of HR and Organisational Development at St George’s, University of London, with a primary focus on supporting the organisation to enable its cultural transformation. Sarita developed her career in the cultural sector at Southbank Centre, where she was instrumental in seeing the organisation through its major transformation programme.
John Stack is Digital Director for the Science Museum Group. He joined the Group in 2015 and is responsible for setting and delivering its digital strategy.
He manages the Digital department which encompasses the museums’ websites, digitised collections, apps, games and on-gallery digital media.
Prior to joining the Science Museum Group he was Head of Digital at Tate for ten years and before that editor of the contemporary artists’ monograph series at Phaidon Press.
Helen Jones is Director of Global Engagement and Strategy. The team works with colleagues throughout the Group to sustain and coordinate key relationships in the UK and overseas, and ensure that we get the best from them. This includes, for example, relationships with national and local government, other museums and professional organisations.
Helen’s background is in archaeology, in which she trained and practised as a conservator for several years, latterly at the Museum of London. She moved into education, running the Victoria and Albert Museum’s contribution to a postgraduate programme for training and research in conservation in collaboration with the Royal College of Art and Imperial College. She went on to become Head of Planning at the V&A before moving to the Science Museum in 2008.
Susan Raikes joined in 2018 as Director of Learning for the Science Museum Group and has overall responsibility for learning direction, strategy and planning.
Prior to joining the Group, Susan spent 10 years at the British Museum, with responsibility for all education programming and national work. Susan previously worked in museum education roles for Tyne & Wear Museums and the Sussex Archaeological Society.
Susan was the 2012/2013 Arts Council England Museums Fellow on the Clore Cultural Leadership Programme and is also a curator and author. Susan is a Trustee for the Collections Trust and for the Postal Museum.
Roger Highfield was appointed Science Director of the Science Museum Group in 2019 after serving eight years as Director of External Affairs, when he was responsible for advocacy, press and marketing. Previously he was Editor of New Scientist magazine between 2008 and 2011 and the Science Editor of the Daily Telegraph between 1988 and 2008. Roger has published articles widely, including in Wired, Science, Observer, Sunday Times, Spectator and Economist. He has written eight books, including two bestsellers, and edited two by the genomics pioneer Craig Venter.
For his doctorate at the University of Oxford, Roger became the first person to bounce a neutron off a soap bubble, while working at the Institut Laue-Langevin, Grenoble, Unilever and Southampton. Recently he was made a visiting professor of public engagement at the Dunn School, University of Oxford, and at the Department of Chemistry, UCL.
A member of the UKRI-Medical Research Council and Fellow of the Royal Society of Biology, Roger won the Royal Society’s Wilkins-Bernal-Medawar prize in 2012 and over the decades has garnered many awards for journalism, notably a British Press Award.
Craig Bentley joined the Science Museum Group in 2017 and as Director of Estate, he is responsible for the maintenance and sustainable management of our diverse estate. He started his career within the Information Technology sector as a Systems Analyst with a global solutions provider before his work on infrastructure and buildings led him to transition to a career within the built environment.
Craig is a specialist in Estate and Facilities Management having held senior roles at a variety of cultural and commercial organisations. His substantial experience gained over the past 20 years includes the care for and restoration of historic buildings, as well as the sustainable operation and maintenance of new assets.
Craig is a chartered surveyor (MRICS) and holds an MSc with distinction in Applied Facilities Management from Liverpool John Moores University. He is also a certified member of the Institute for Workplace and Facilities Management.
Anna Dejean is the Masterplan Director for the Science Museum Group. Anna joined the Group in 2013 to deliver the first phase of the Science Museum’s Masterplan, which transformed 50% of the Science Museum by 2019.
Since 2021, Anna holds responsibility for capital programmes across the Group. These include a transformational Masterplan for each of the Group’s Museums as well as the programme of investment in the Group’s wide and varied estate.
Anna has 15 years of experience in capital projects, previously managing new galleries and public realm projects at the Victoria & Albert Museum.
Sian Williams joined the Science Museum Group in 2015 to lead on the delivery of the One Collection programme. One Collection is the largest and most ambitious programme the Science Museum Group has undertaken in recent times, and will transform how we care for, access and share our internationally significant collection with the world.
Having originally qualified as a Chartered Accountant, Sian has over 20 years’ experience in the museum sector leading finance and corporate services at Director level for both Tate and the V&A during periods of major capital works and expansion. Sian was also Head of Finance at the Olympic Delivery Authority and worked briefly at DCMS to prepare the business case that secured the funding for the SMG, V&A and British Museum exit from Blythe House.
Sian has a keen interest in art and is a Trustee of the Dulwich Picture Gallery.
Julia is Deputy Director of the Science Museum with responsibility for visitor experience, operations, curatorial, exhibitions & galleries and leads on Sustainability & Net Zero by 2033 strategy across our five museums & National Collections Centre.
Julia joined the museum from the Senior Civil Service as Deputy Director of Energy and Climate Science in BEIS, with oversight for the science underpinning the UK’s Net Zero by 2050 legislation.
A soil and climate scientist, Julia’s career spans over 20 years in biodiversity, conservation, climate change and sustainable agriculture—including 12 years overseas as a British diplomat in the Foreign Office as Director of the science teams in East China, Russia & Latin America. In Brazil, she led a £150 Million fund for UK-Brazil research including for identifying new plant species in the Amazon rainforest. Previously Julia worked in senior policy and delivery roles in nature, conservation and agriculture for DEFRA.
Julia is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Biology, a Trustee of the Woodland Trust and Co-Chair of the Board of Trustees of ‘Exhibition Road Cultural Group’— a charity promoting London’s home of arts and science, representing 17 cultural institutions including the V&A, Natural History Museum & Royal Albert Hall. Julia sits on the Advisory Board to the All Party Parliamentary Group for Bees and Pollinators and is a member of the Royal Society’s Public Engagement Committee.
Sally Macdonald started her career as curator of decorative arts at Manchester Art Gallery. She moved to London and worked as Deputy Director at the Geffrye Museum before going on to set up a new multi-award-winning museum and heritage service in Croydon.
More recently she worked in a variety of roles at University College London, ending up as Director of Public and Cultural Engagement. In September 2014 she became Director of the Science and Industry Museum.
She has served on several museum boards, including those of the Museums Association and the Jewish Museum. She was until recently co-chair of the Women Leaders in Museums Network, and was co-founder of Cultural Heritage without Borders. She currently sits on Arts Council England’s North Council and is a member of the Royal Society’s Public Engagement Committee.
Jo Quinton-Tulloch became the Director of what was then the National Media Museum in 2013. Her 20 years in museums began as an Explainer in the Learning team at the Science Museum. She has gone on to deliver world-class galleries and exhibitions, including being part of the team that designed and established the National Maritime Museum Cornwall.
Jo’s focus in Bradford has been to forge new sustainable partnerships across the city and region which reposition the Museum as a centre of excellence in STEM learning. As part of this focus, Jo led a major relaunch of the renamed and rebranded National Science and Media Museum in spring 2017.
Jo has an honours degree in biological sciences from the University of East Anglia and an MSc in science communication from Imperial College. She is a Fellow of the RSA and a Board Member for Bradford UNESCO City of Film.
Judith McNicol became the Director of the National Railway Museum in 2017, with a remit to deliver the first phases of the museum’s redevelopment, including Locomotion in County Durham. Judith joined the Science Museum Group in 2005 and has undertaken a variety of senior roles.
Judith started her career working in engineering, including starting a machine tool company in her 20s, and moving on to work with a venture capitalist in the engineering sector, where she led a diverse range of companies.
Deborah Myers is a Development Director with over 25 years experience in the culture, HE and charitable sectors.
Deborah’s career has focused on major donor development, following an all-round training at Jewish Care. From there she started the Patrons’ programme at Sadler’s Wells theatre, followed by building the major donor team at the Royal Opera House. She joined the British Film Institute as Deputy Director of Development to work on their proposed Capital Campaign. A stint in Principal Gifts at King’s College London followed. More recently Deborah spent five years at the National Gallery as Head of Development.
Following a period as a consultant and interim, Deborah became Director of Development at the Science Museum Group, working with their ambitious fundraising team to build income across their five museums.
Nicolas Raynaud joined the Group as Director of Finance and Corporate Services in November 2022, with oversight of Finance, ICT, Legal and Procurement.
After an early career in banking in Paris and London, he became interested in how finance could have a positive social impact and worked for a range of organisations aiming to transform people’s lives, through the arts (Arts Council), social housing (Circle Housing), international teaching and cultural cooperation (British Council). His most recent roles were in international development, as Finance Director of WaterAid (2015 – 2019) and Chief Operating Officer of BBC Media Action (2019 – 2022).
Nicolas holds degrees from HEC Business School and Sciences Po (Paris) and is a chartered accountant (ACCA)
