The Prime Minister has appointed Lord Marland of Odstock and Priyanka Wadhawan as Trustees of the British Museum
Lord Marland of Odstock and Priyanka Wadhawan have been appointed by the Prime Minister as Trustees of the British Museum for four year terms from 1 December 2021 to 30 November 2025.
Lord Marland of Odstock
Lord Marland is a Life Peer and former Founding Director of Jardine Lloyd Thompson Group. He is Chairman of the Commonwealth Enterprise and Investment Council, and has previously served as a Minister with the Department for Energy and Climate Change, and the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills until 2013. He also held roles as the Prime Minister’s Trade Envoy and Chairman of the Prime Minister’s Business Ambassador’s Network until January 2014.
Lord Marland has extensive fundraising expertise, and a great interest in art and ancient history, and has held Trusteeships with the Holburne Museum in Bath and the Royal Academy Development Board, as well as Chairmanship of the Tate Partons Collectors’ Forum.
Lord Marland brings to the board of the British Museums extensive business acumen, international leadership and political expertise.
Priyanka Wadhawan
Priyanka Wadhawan is Director of Insights & Innovation at Amazon, where she has worked for over 15 years. In that time, she has led a variety of product, technology and business teams.
Priyanka moved from Seattle to the UK four years ago, to build Amazon’s Insight and Innovation team in Europe. This group focuses on solving large scale strategic problems that don’t have a clear answer. In this role, she works with cross functional global teams using data, economic science, analytics and automation.
Originally from India, she has over 20 years of experience in building successful products and businesses in high growth technology organisations across India, USA and Europe. At Amazon, she is widely recognized as a strategic thinker and innovative leader, having developed and launched outstanding products to enhance the customer experience, including Amazon Prime in the UK, Germany and Japan, ‘Prime Pantry’ (Patent awarded) and the recently launched 4star store in the UK.
Priyanka is a passionate champion for diversity, gender equality and inclusion. She is also a founding member of the National Numeracy Leadership Council in the UK which aims to improve national numeracy levels. She has a Bachelor of Commerce from Mumbai University, India and an MBA from University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business, USA.
These roles are not remunerated. These appointments have been made in accordance with the Cabinet Office’s Governance Code on Public Appointments. The appointments process is regulated by the Commissioner for Public Appointments. Under the Code, any significant political activity undertaken by an appointee in the last five years must be declared. This is defined as including holding office, public speaking, making a recordable donation, or candidature for election. Lord Marland has declared that he is a Conservative Peer, President of the Salisbury Conservative Association, and has previously stood as a Conservative Party candidate in the 2001 general election. Priyanka Wadhawan has not declared any activity.