PRESS RELEASE : Three Trustees reappointed to the Victoria & Albert Museum [December 2023]
The press release issued by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport on 21 December 2023.
The Prime Minister has reappointed Allegra Berman, Amanda Levete, and Amanda Spielman as Trustees to the Victoria & Albert Museum, for terms of 4 years.
Allegra Berman
Reappointed from 01 March 2024 until 29 February 2028.
Allegra Berman is a General Manager and the Global Head of Institutional Sales within the Markets & Securities Services division of HSBC Bank plc. Allegra has 30 years’ experience in investment banking across a number of areas, including capital markets, mergers & acquisitions, infrastructure finance, corporate banking, Securities Services and Markets.
Allegra was previously a Trustee of the National Portrait Gallery and Chair of its Investment Committee and Finance Committees. Allegra is currently a Trustee of the Wolfson Foundation and Chair of its Risk & Audit Committee.
Amanda Levete
Reappointed from 01 March 2024 until 29 February 2028.
Amanda Levete is a Stirling Prize–winning architect and principal of architecture studio AL_A.
Completed museum projects include the V&A Exhibition Road Quarter and MAAT, the Museum of Art, Architecture and Technology in Lisbon. Ongoing commissions include Paisley Museum in Scotland, the D’Ieteren headquarters in Brussels and the Belgrade Philharmonic Concert Hall in Serbia.
Amanda trained at the Architectural Association and worked for Richard Rogers before joining Future Systems as a partner in 1989, where she established the ground-breaking Media Centre at Lord’s Cricket Ground. She founded AL_A in 2009 with directors Ho-Yin Ng, Alice Dietsch and Maximiliano Arrocet.
Amanda was awarded a CBE for services to architecture in 2017 and in 2019 she was made an Honorary Fellow of the American Institute of Architects. In 2021, she was elected a Royal Academician at the Royal Academy of Arts.
Amanda Spielman
Reappointed from 01 March 2024 until 29 February 2028.
Amanda Spielman has been a V&A trustee since 2020. She is chair of the audit committee and a member of the Young V&A committee.
Amanda has served for nearly seven years as His Majesty’s Chief Inspector at Ofsted, which is responsible for the inspection of schools, colleges, apprenticeships, adult education, nurseries, childminders and children’s social care. In this role she has spoken regularly about education, including speeches about art & design, design & technology and music.
Before this she was chair of Ofqual, the qualifications regulator, and research and policy director at the academy chain Ark Schools. Her early career was in strategy consulting, finance and investment at KPMG, Kleinwort Benson, Mercer Management Consulting and Nomura International.
She has also been a council member at Brunel University London and at the Institute of Education, a director of the Wales Millennium Centre, and a school governor. She holds an honorary doctorate from the University of Buckingham and is an honorary fellow of Brunel University.
Remuneration and Governance Code
Trustees of the Victoria & Albert Museum are not remunerated. This appointment has 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. Allegra Berman, Amanda Levete and Amanda Spielman have not declared any significant political activity.
