The Place

Sir Tim Lankester (chair) started his career as an economist with the World Bank in Washington DC and New Delhi. He joined HM Treasury in 1973, and subsequently served as Private Secretary to Prime Ministers Callaghan and Thatcher. He was seconded to SG Warburg (1981-83) and the IMF and World Bank (1985-88) before holding two successive Permanent Secretary positions at what is now the Department for International Development (1989-94) and in the former Department for Education (1994-95).  Tim then moved into academia, first as Director of SOAS (1996-2000) and, from 2001-2010, President of Corpus Christi College, Oxford. Tim was Deputy Director of the British Council from 1997-2003, and he is currently chairman of the board of trustees of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. He also serves on the Asia Europe Foundation, the UK India Round Table, the UK National Committee of the Aga Khan Foundation, and the management board of the Sainsbury Institute for the Study of Japanese Art and Culture. In the private sector, he is currently on the boards of Actis Capital LLP and Mitchells and Butler PLC.

Dawn Bardwell (Treasurer) has been a senior inspector at the Audit Inspection Unit (AIU) of the Financial Reporting Council (FRC) since its inception in 2004 and was involved in establishing its modus operandi. The key objective of the AIU is to improve audit quality in the UK.  Prior to taking on this role, Dawn was a senior financial services partner in PricewaterhouseCoopers with client responsibilities in the UK, France and Switzerland in all areas of audit and attest services, including corporate finance activities. Dawn is also a churchwarden and vice-chairman of the Parochial Church Council of Sawbridgeworth and trustee of a number of related charities. She developed an interest from an early age in ballet, opera and theatre and is a supporter of a number of operatic and theatrical organisations.

Marian Bell CBE is an economist. She has completed a three-year term as a member of the Monetary Policy Committee of the Bank of England, responsible for setting interest rates to meet the Government's 2% inflation target. Prior to joining the MPC, Marian ran her own consultancy, Alpha Economics. Her previous appointments were at The Royal Bank of Scotland, where she was Head of Research, Treasury and Capital Markets, HM Treasury and the London Enterprise Agency. She is a member of the Assembly of the Cathedral and Abbey Church of St. Alban. Marian was educated at Hertford College, Oxford and Birkbeck College, London, and her enthusiasm for contemporary dance goes back some thirty years.

Stephen Browning has spent over thirty years working in senior management positions with major cultural organisations in this country and overseas, including the Royal Shakespeare Company, Oxford Playhouse, Greenwich Theatre, Opera 80 (now English Touring Opera), the Hong Kong Arts Centre and the Hong Kong International Film Festival. Stephen is currently running a leading management consultancy, which specialises in advising the creative industries.  He has extensive experience in strategic planning, project management, feasibility studies and operational reviews for public, voluntary and private sector organisations, and he is currently undertaking projects in the performing and visual arts, heritage and tourism.

Douglas Campbell was educated at Dollar Academy and Hertford College, Oxford where he was awarded a First in Chemistry (with a distinction in Quantum Chemistry) and a Blue for Athletics. After university he spent a year in Japan working for the Japanese Ministry of Education where he learned Japanese to advanced standard and took a brown belt in karate. He was called to the Bar of the Inner Temple in October 1993 and specialises in intellectual property and information technology law. He was appointed a Recorder (a part-time Circuit Judge) in October 2010 and is a member of the Attorney-General’s Panel of Junior Counsel to the Crown.  He has no ability or qualifications in relation to dance, save that he loves it.

Robert Cohan CBE is a key figure in the development of British dance. American by birth, he was a celebrated dancer with and later Director of the Martha Graham Dance Company in New York. He was invited by Robin Howard to become the Founder Artistic Director of The Place in 1967. Over the next twenty years he pioneered the teaching and performance of contemporary dance in this country, establishing London Contemporary Dance School and London Contemporary Dance Theatre, the company which he led until its closure in 1994. A generation of British dance artists has grown up under his tutelage, and celebrations of his 80th birthday in 2005 sparked a recent revival of interest in his choreography.

Susan Debenham is a human resources consultant who has worked extensively in the NHS and also for the BBC and in local government. Sue trained professionally as a dancer at London College of Dance and Drama before changing career direction into human resource management. Sue has maintained her interest in dance over thirty years, has been actively involved in youth theatre and amateur dramatics, and has taught adult education dance exercise classes.

Janet Eager MBE joined the board of governors in 1997 following 33 years working for the Contemporary Dance Trust / The Place. She was the Administrator of the original contemporary dance classes set up by the Robin Howard Trust in 1964/65, and of the Contemporary Dance Trust studios and performing group 1966-68 at Berners Place. She became a founder member of The Place in 1969 and was Executive Director of London Contemporary Dance Theatre until 1994, and then Executive Director of Richard Alston Dance Company from 1994-97. In 1991 she formed the Robin Howard Foundation to support young dancers and choreographers; she remains a Trustee and Honorary Secretary. In 1986 she was awarded the MBE for services to dance. Since retirement she has trainied as a complementary health practitioner working as a volunteer with cancer patients. She has sat on the boards of numerous dance companies and organisations, including CandoCo, Academy of Indian Dancing, International Course for Choreographers and Composers, Lisa Ullman Travelling Foundation and is currently a member of the finance committee at The Place and a Trustee of Dancers’ Career Development.

Andrew Missingham is an independent consultant working on a wide variety projects across the creative industries. After studying Performance Arts at Middlesex Polytechnic, he spent the first ten years of his career working as a musician and record producer with the likes of Labi Siffre, UNKLE, Urban Species, Howie B, Jocelyn Brown, Paul Oakenfold, MC Solaar and Airto Moreira. Leaving the world of performance behind in 1996, he took a job at Paul McCartney’s new Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts to lecture in music and record production. His return to London in 1998 brought him to the British Council where he was Music Projects Manager, programming in forty-three countries across Africa, the Middle East and South Asia. In 2001 he moved on to become Director of Performing Arts at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London before starting his own arts consultancy and event production company at the end of 2002. In 2004 Andrew was awarded a fellowship in the inaugural year of the Clore Leadership Programme – the UK’s flagship cultural leadership scheme.

Catherine Quinn was appointed Under Treasurer for the Honourable Society of the Middle Temple in 2011. She previously ran the grant-giving operations of the Wellcome Trust, an independent charity and the UK’s largest non-Governmental source of funds for biomedical research. Prior to joining the Trust in 2007, she ran a Business Innovation and Consulting Group and for seven years was Director of Research Services at the University of Oxford, with responsibility for the University’s research funding portfolio, grant and contract management, intellectual property rights, and sponsor relations. Catherine was until recently a Director of Oxford Limited (a merchandising and trademark licensing company) and a member of the HM Treasury-led Lambert IP Group, established to improve collaboration between business and academia. A Fellow of Wolfson College, Oxford, Catherine did her undergraduate degree in the UK and postgraduate degrees in the USA and UK. She loves dance and is an enthusiastic participant in evening classes at the Place.

Hopal Romans began her involvement in the arts at an early age as a dancer, which led to a long and successful professional dancing career, working for companies both in England and the United States, including Extemporary and Union Dance Companies. She then retrained as an arts manager with the help of a fellowship from the Arts Council of England. Hopal is currently Principal Officer at Youth Music, a national charity that provides music making opportunities for children and young people. Her team creates a range of strategic and open access programmes and initiatives for young people who would otherwise have no opportunity to share in making music. 

John Stewart is Head of Legal and Company Secretary for the Wellcome Trust, the world’s largest biomedical charity, which is based near The Place on Euston Road. John is an American citizen who has lived in London for the past eighteen years, and worked for the Wellcome Trust since 1995. He is  a director of  Rosslyn Hill Unitarian Chapel and Global Heritage Fund and  a member of the London Committee of Human Rights Watch.  John is a keen supporter of the performing and visual arts and is taking Level 1 contemporary dance classes at The Place.  He is Chair of the Audit Committee and a member of the Nominations Committee.

Sharon Watson trained at London Contemporary Dance School. She danced with Spiral and Extemporary Dance Theatre before joining Phoenix Dance Theatre as a dancer from 1989 to 1997 and later as Rehearsal Director from 2000 to 2006. She has choreographed four pieces for Phoenix as well as creating new works for the Northern School of Contemporary Dance, National Youth Dance Company, Union Dance and the opening ceremony of the Royal Armouries in Leeds. Her own company ABCD was formed in 1998 and has toured both nationally and internationally. She was appointed as the seventh Artistic Director of Phoenix Dance Theatre in May 2009 and in 2010 was named as one of the Cultural Leadership Programme’s Women to Watch, a list of 50 influential women working in arts and culture in the UK.

Richard Worts has worked as an investment consultant and freelance photographer.  From 2002 to 2005 he was Executive Director of Goldman Sachs, and from January to June 2002 was Chief Executive Officer of AXA Rosenberg.  From 1988 to 2001 Richard worked for Global Asset Management (GAM), first as Director and Fund Manager New Zealand Funds and then as Managing Director Private Clients UK.  During 1987 and 1988 he was a Fund Manager and Engineering Research Analyst for Kleinwort Benson.  During 1973 to 1987 he served as a Captain in the British Army.

 

Members of the Board of Governors are selected on the basis of their skills, expertise and commitment to The Place. An audit of Board members is conducted approximately every two years and matched against a regularly reviewed list of requirements. Board members are subject to re-election every two to three years, but in exceptional circumstances the Board may vote to extend this if The Place would particularly benefit as a result. The Board meets on average four times a year, and also convenes an Annual General Meeting, which other Members of the Association of the Company are invited to attend.