Secretary of State appoints four Trustees to the Board of The Royal Parks
The Rt Hon Karen Bradley MP has appointed Ruth Anderson, Heather Blackman, Wesley Kerr and Charles Martin to the Board of The Royal Parks for terms of four years, ending on 13 November 2020.
Ruth Anderson
Ruth is a chartered accountant and a non-executive director of three UK quoted companies, Ocado Group plc, Travis Perkins plc and Coats Group plc. She is also a Trustee of the youth charity, The Duke of Edinburgh’s Award. Prior to her non-executive career, Ruth was a Partner of the accounting firm KPMG where she worked for 33 years, from joining as a student accountant in 1976 to retiring in 2009 when she was a Partner and Vice-Chairman of the UK firm. Ruth was a Board Member for the The Royal Parks Agency from 2008 to 2016.
Heather Blackman
Heather is currently Chief Executive Officer at the lifestyle clothing brand Finisterre. She has worked in retail for 30 years and worked at a variety of high street names and premium brands, including Laura Ashley, Fat Face and more recently Managing Director at Hotel Chocolat. Starting in buying and merchandising, then multi-channel retailing, Heather has a vast experience of strategy and commercial planning centred around the customer. She is currently also a Non-Executive Director for Line Life Ltd, Jimmy Hooves and R Chocolate of London.
Wesley Kerr OBE
Wesley is a broadcaster, journalist, historian, horticulturist and curator. He has worked on numerous BBC television and radio programmes, including Nationwide, Newsnight, Panorama, Holiday, Watchdog Healthcheck, Value for Money and the various daily news outlets. Wesley has worked in 40 countries and has written for many national newspapers and journals. He is a previous member of the RHS Show Gardens Panel and former Chairman of the Heritage Lottery Fund Committee for London. Wesley was a Board Member for The Royal Parks Agency from 2013 to 2016. He is currently Vice-President of the Metropolitan Public Gardens Association.
Charles D Z Martin
Charles is the Senior Partner of Macfarlanes LLP. He is a solicitor with 30 years’ of experience at boardroom level in private and public mergers and acquisitions, private equity and corporate advisory. He is a Trustee of The Visitor’s Art Foundation. He was formerly a Trustee of The Royal Parks Foundation and sat on the Committee that was responsible for the RPF Half Marathon. He lives in London and is an active user of The Royal Parks.
Trustees for The Royal Parks are not remunerated. These appointments have been made in accordance with the OCPA Code of Practice. It is a requirement of the Code that political activity by those appointed is declared. Ruth Anderson, Heather Blackman, Wesley Kerr and Charles Martin have declared that they have not carried out any political activity.